The economic impacts of the UK's eat out to help out scheme
评估英国疫情期间推出的“外出就餐帮帮忙”计划对餐饮业的影响，发现该计划暂时提升了客流量和招聘岗位，但未产生显著的溢出效应。
We evaluate the economic impacts of the UK's Eat Out to Help Out (EOTHO) scheme on the food service sector. EOTHO was introduced during the COVID pandemic to stimulate demand by subsidizing the cost of eating out, with a 50 % discount Mondays to Wednesdays in August 2020. We exploit the spatial variation in participation using a continuous difference-in-differences approach and an instrumental variables strategy. We measure the effect on footfall using mobility data from Google and on employment using job posts from Indeed. Our estimates indicate that a one standard deviation increase in exposure to the EOTHO scheme increased footfall in retail & recreation by 2–5 %, and job posts in the food preparation & service industry by 6–8 %. These effects are transitory, and we do not find evidence of large spillover benefits to non-recreational activities or other sectors.