As households reduce discretionary spending in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns are high that a resulting fall in aggregate demand can lead to a lasting recession post-COVID-19. Consequently, policies aimed at stimulating consumer spending are of key interest to governments working to...

We analyze the impact of a temporary shock to food supply on households’ dietary choices. We use hurricane-induced closures of grocery stores, focusing on temporary closures. Results show that store closures influence households’ purchasing patterns even after the grocery store has reopened....

This research investigates changes in brand loyalty as households pass from one stage of the household life cycle to another. Analysing 45 brands in three consumer product categories in the UK, we find that the changes follow a U shape pattern. Brand loyalty declines sharply as households shift...

This paper combines several administrative data and a survey experiment to evaluate the role of lifestyle changes in influencing inflation expectations. Using data from Nielsen's Homescan Panel, as well as a leading bank in Singapore, we first document that households are upgrading across...

Many macro-economists argue that productivity is low in developing countries because of frictions that impede the adoption of modern technologies. I argue that in the retail trade sector, which employs just under twenty percent of the workforce on average, developing countries rationally choose...

This paper investigates market concentration in the US retail sector. We use store and household-level consumption micro-data from 2004-2019 to document four facts linked by a decomposition: 1) rising national concentration, 2) negligible change in regional concentration, 3) rising household...

In this paper we analyze the impact of a randomized information package on the understanding and uptake of community based health insurance. The information package consists of a detailed brochure which is distributed to households through home visits, a video also presented in people's homes...

We propose a new method to model consumers' consideration and choice processes. We develop a parsimonious probit type model for consideration and a multinomial probit model for choice, given consideration. Unlike earlier models of consideration ours is not prone to the curse of dimensionality,...

Smart Homes system has gained a huge demand in last few years as they improve the standard of living and give user an easy life. Any house that is integrated with automated technology (i.e., has connectivity in nearly all devices) is called a smart home. The concept of smart home can be explored...

Governments worldwide have spent billions of dollars on monetary incentives for consumers,such as tax credits, to encourage the adoption of eco-friendly (“green”) products. However, thereis little consensus regarding the effectiveness of tax credit incentives in increasing green...