Expected Post-Pandemic Consumption and Scarred Expectations from COVID-19

Alexander Dietrich, Edward Knotek, Michael McMain, Kristian Ove R. Myrseth, Raphael Schoenle and Michael Weber

Economic Commentary, 2021, vol. 2021, issue 11, 8

Abstract: The COVID-19 vaccination drive raises questions about the trajectory of the economic recovery and the pandemic’s impact on consumers’ longer-term behaviors. In this Commentary, we examine the evolution of consumers’ expectations for their post-crisis spending on services that have been dramatically curtailed by the pandemic: visiting restaurants, bars, and hotels, using public transportation, and attending crowded events. We document a U-shaped pattern of expected future use of these services, with growing pessimism in summer 2020 that had largely reversed by fall 2020—for most groups. More recently, higher-income individuals have indicated that they expect to sharply increase their use of these services compared with their pre-pandemic behaviors, but there has been a notable scarring of expectations among older Americans.

Keywords: COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.26509/frbc-ec-202111

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