Relationship among COVID-19, mobility, and food service vouchers in Japan

Hiroaki Masuhara and Kei Hosoya

Applied Economics, 2024, vol. 56, issue 4, 375-397

Abstract: In 2020, the Japanese government launched the Go To Eat campaign, a policy initiative involving the distribution of vouchers to households for use at restaurants, with the aim of supporting the food service industry, which had experienced a significant decrease in sales due to the government’s ‘self-restraint request’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper uses a nonparametric method to investigate the relationship between the Go To Eat campaign and the spread of COVID-19 in Japan by examining food service expenditures, mobility, positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, and the Indices of Industrial Production. The distribution of food service expenditures changed in October and November, when the campaign started, as well as in December, when the campaign ended. In addition, the distribution of mobility changed in January 2021, when a state of emergency was declared. The Go To Eat campaign was economically effective as a temporary subsidy, and it might have facilitated mobility in a way that was difficult to control for some time. As such, the indirect effect of the campaign on the rise in the number of positive PCR tests is undeniable.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2023.2167927 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:56:y:2024:i:4:p:375-397

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2023.2167927

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().