Campos-Vazquez Raymundo M, Esquivel Gerardo
Banco de México, Av. 5 de Mayo 2, Col. Centro, 06000 Mexico, Mexico.
Rev Econ Househ. 2021;19(2):353-371. doi: 10.1007/s11150-020-09539-2. Epub 2021 Jan 13.
We analyze the universe of point-of-sale (POS) transactions before and during the COVID-19 lockdown in Mexico. We find three key results. First, consumption in Mexico fell by 23 percent in the April-June quarter of 2020 and by 16 percent from April to September of 2020 as compared to expected levels. Second, reductions in consumption were highly heterogeneous across sectors and states, with states and activities related to tourism the most affected. Third, using variation over time and states, we estimate the elasticity of POS expenditures with respect to geographic mobility (measured using cellphone location data) to be slightly less than 1. This estimate suggests that spending in developing countries may be more responsive to mobility than in developed countries, and that mobility indicators could be used as a real-time proxy for consumption in some economies.
我们分析了墨西哥在新冠疫情封锁之前及期间的销售点（POS）交易情况。我们得出了三个关键结果。其一，与预期水平相比，墨西哥的消费在2020年第二季度下降了23%，在2020年4月至9月期间下降了16%。其二，各行业和各州的消费降幅差异很大，与旅游业相关的州和活动受影响最大。其三，利用时间和各州之间的差异，我们估计销售点支出相对于地理流动性（使用手机位置数据衡量）的弹性略小于1。这一估计表明，发展中国家的消费支出对流动性的反应可能比发达国家更为敏感，并且在某些经济体中，流动性指标可以用作消费的实时替代指标。
