Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Saitama University, Sakura-ku, Saitama, Japan.
Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.
PLoS One. 2023 Oct 5;18(10):e0291395. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291395. eCollection 2023.
Like many other countries, the economy and society of Japan have been severely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, and the fishery sector particularly seafood is no exception. Among seafood, since luxury seafood is more commonly consumed at restaurants it has a higher possibility of getting affected by the pandemic compared with cheap popular seafood for the masses. Considering this motivation, this study investigates the variations in the COVID-19 impact on luxury and cheap seafood prices in the Tokyo Toyosu wholesale market. Using the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag model (NARDL), the study identifies that an increase in the hours of stay-at-home during the initial stage of the pandemic is causing a negative influence on both cheap and luxury seafood prices and that this negative impact was severer in the luxury seafood prices. The study also finds a positive influence from the hours of stay-at-home on some cheap popular seafood like horse mackerel and sardine during the third state of emergency (SOE) where at least most of the elderly people have received their first vaccine dose but the negative impact from the SOE measure remained on luxury seafood. It is evident from the findings that the luxury seafood market is heavily dependent on the restaurant sector, which will likely suffer adverse effects when human mobility is restricted. In the event of a pandemic like COVID-19, policymakers should stabilize the price and provide subsidies to the luxury seafood stakeholders.
与许多其他国家一样，日本的经济和社会受到了 COVID-19 疫情的严重影响，渔业部门，特别是海鲜业也未能幸免。在海鲜中，由于豪华海鲜通常在餐厅消费，因此与大众消费的廉价海鲜相比，其受到疫情影响的可能性更高。基于这一动机，本研究调查了 COVID-19 对东京筑地批发市场豪华海鲜和廉价海鲜价格的影响变化。本研究使用非线性自回归分布滞后模型（NARDL）发现，在疫情初期，居家时间的增加对廉价和豪华海鲜价格都产生了负面影响，而且这种负面影响在豪华海鲜价格上更为严重。研究还发现，在第三次紧急状态（SOE）期间，居家时间对一些廉价受欢迎的海鲜，如鲐鱼和沙丁鱼，产生了积极影响，因为此时至少大多数老年人已经接种了第一剂疫苗，但 SOE 措施的负面影响仍然存在于豪华海鲜上。研究结果表明，豪华海鲜市场严重依赖于餐厅行业，而当人员流动受到限制时，餐厅行业可能会受到不利影响。在 COVID-19 等大流行期间，政策制定者应稳定价格并为豪华海鲜利益相关者提供补贴。
