How COVID-19 changed Italian consumers' behavior

Enrico Maria Cervellati; Gian Paolo Stella; Umberto Filotto; Andrea Maino

doi:10.1016/j.gfj.2021.100680

How COVID-19 changed Italian consumers' behavior

Glob Financ J. 2022 Feb:51:100680. doi: 10.1016/j.gfj.2021.100680. Epub 2021 Nov 6.

Authors

Enrico Maria Cervellati¹, Gian Paolo Stella², Umberto Filotto³, Andrea Maino⁴

Affiliations

¹ Research Department, University of Rome, Link Campus, Via del Casale di San Pio V, 44, 00165 Rome, Italy.
² Department of Law, LUMSA University, Via Filippo Parlatore, 65, 90105 Palermo, Italy.
³ Department of Management and Law, University of Rome, Tor Vergata Via Columbia, 2, 00133 Rome, Italy.
⁴ Swiss Finance Institute, University of Geneva, Bd du Pont d'Arve, 42, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.

Abstract

We investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected people's health-related choices and spending habits in Italy, the first European country to be heavily affected by the pandemic. We collected about 3000 questionnaires in May and June 2020 (that is, during the stabilization phase that followed the country's lockdown), asking questions taken from the "Survey tool and guidance: rapid, simple, flexible behavioural insights on COVID-19" issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), and correlated the responses with respondents' demographic and socioeconomic profiles. A principal component analysis (PCA) shows three main components that we label "Unusual behavior," "Precautionary spending," and "Augmented social distancing," which vary with demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

Keywords: COVID-19; Consumer behavior; Consumer spending; Health-related decisions; Socioeconomic variables.