A blessing in disguise—The effect of China’s Covid-19 health code system on older people’s mobile payment usage

Jialiang Zhu, Yun Liu and Ying Fang

Finance Research Letters, 2023, vol. 53, issue C

Abstract: In early 2020, China launched a health code system to combat the spread of Covid-19. The required health code led to a drastic uptake of smartphone usage among older residents. This paper uses rich commercial data from the Zhejiang Province of China to track the change in consumption among the older population. The paper finds that older people significantly increased spending after switching to mobile payment. The paper contributes to the literature by identifying the unexpected windfall from the effect of the health code mandate on the older population and demonstrating that digital payment works well in the older population.

Keywords: Health code; Digital finance; Older people’s consumption behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 E44 G21 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finlet:v:53:y:2023:i:c:s1544612323000454

DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2023.103671

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