Short‐term impact of COVID‐19 on consumption spending and its underlying mechanisms: Evidence from Singapore
利用新加坡个人层面月度面板数据，发现疫情使家庭消费支出峰值下降近四分之一，富裕家庭反应更大；消费减少与封锁政策、经济不确定性和收入下降有关，无收入损失家庭储蓄大增，解封后消费反弹约10个百分点。
We examine the short-term impact of COVID-19 on consumption spending and its underlying mechanisms using individual-level monthly panel data from Singapore. Although Singapore's case fatality rate was one of the lowest in the world in the early stage of the pandemic (0.05%), we find that the COVID-19 pandemic reduced household consumption spending by almost one quarter at its peak, with a larger response from households with above-median wealth. We show that the reduction in consumption spending is associated with the nationwide lockdown policy, heightened economic uncertainty and reduced income. In addition, we find a substantial increase in monthly savings among households without income losses, suggesting a substantial rebound in consumption spending after the lifting of the lockdown. The results from June 2020 confirm this conjecture, as we find that consumption spending rebounded by about 10 percentage points in that month.