Photo of Abe C. Dunn.

Assistant Chief Economist

Abe C. Dunn

Education

Ph.D.
University of Texas at Austin
Economics
2006
B.A.
University of Oregon
Economics and Mathematics
2000

Areas of Interest

Health
Applied Econometrics
Industrial Organization
Paper (BEA-WP2023-3)

Consumption Zones (PDF)

Andrea Batch , Benjamin R. Bridgman , Abe C. Dunn , and Mahsa Gholizadeh

Measuring the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Consumer Spending Using Card Transaction Data tanya.shen Fri, 04/24/2020 - 13:15
Working Paper

We evaluate the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer spending using daily card transaction data. Overall, we find large effects of this pandemic on sectors such as accommodations and restaurants, which by the second week of March, show declines of around 80 percent and 70 percent, respectively. However, these declines were partly offset by the large 100 percent immediate increase in food and beverage store sales. For select goods and services in our data, we find an aggregate decline in spending of around 13.7 percent for March, and we estimate an aggregate “pandemic effect”—the effect of the pandemic on consumer spending after mitigation measures have had time to take hold—of around –27.8 percent.

 
Additional Information

 

 

Abe C. Dunn , Kyle K. Hood , and Alexander Driessen

Working Paper ID
WP2020-5
E01 E21