Tracking the COVID-19 crisis with high-resolution transaction data
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Payments systems generate vast amounts of naturally occurring transaction data rarely used for constructing official statistics. We consider billions of transactions from card data from a large bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, as an alternative source of information for measuring consumption. We show, via validation against official consumption measures, that transaction data complements national accounts and consumption surveys. We then analyse the impact of COVID-19 in Spain, and document: (i) strong consumption responses to business closures, but smaller effects for capacity restrictions; (ii) a steeper decline in spending in rich neighbourhoods; (iii) higher mobility for residents of lower-income neighbourhoods, correlating with increased disease incidence.
Date Issued
2021-08
Date Acceptance
2021-07-26
Citation
Royal Society Open Science, 2021, 8 (8), pp.1-18
ISSN
2054-5703
Publisher
The Royal Society
Start Page
1
End Page
18
Journal / Book Title
Royal Society Open Science
Volume
8
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits
unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits
unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Identifier
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.210218
Grant Number
MSEP_P85339
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-08-11