We use UK transaction-level data during the Covid-19 pandemic to study whether mortgage payment holidays (PH) can act as a mechanism for smoothing household consumption following negative aggregate shocks. Our results suggest that mortgage PH were accessed by both households with pre-existing...

This paper uses transaction-level customer data from the largest bank in Denmark to estimate the change in consumer spending caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shutdown of the Danish economy. We find that aggregate spending was on average 27% below the counterfactual level without...

We explore how household consumption responds to epidemics, utilizing transaction-level household financial data to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 virus. As the number of cases grew, households began to radically alter their typical spending across a number of major categories. Initially...