We examine how the COVID-19 contagion influences consumer expenditure patterns. We show that the consumption expenditure responses to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic are significantly different between the older and younger generations. We find that older adults spend less than the younger generation by at least 5% during the pandemic. In fact, those aged above 60 significantly decrease their spending even on food and drink products by 13%. We also find that older adults forgo shopping in favor of the younger generation. These responses might be due to the fear of COVID-19 infection (Immordino et al., 2022).

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic plunged many industries of the economy into contraction, particularly the travel, hotel accommodation, and eating/drinking industries. In Japan, some demand-inducing policies targeting such industries were implemented, known as the Go To Travel and Go To Eat campaigns. Using a unique individual-level survey, we investigate what factors make people respond to these campaign policies. We find that certain socioeconomics factors (e.g., gender, income, ICT skills) as well as noneconomic factors matter. In particular, risk attitudes, and personal traits (e.g., extraversion) crucially affect whether people traveled or dined out in response to these campaigns despite the spread of COVID-19.

In this study, we examined the effect of the order of shortening business hours of the restaurants, which are considered a major source of spreading the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Specifically, we empirically investigated how this order changed the nighttime light (NTL) in regions with restaurants in the Greater Tokyo area from January to June 2020. Several local governments in Japan had implemented the order to combat COVID-19. Our investigation found evidence that the order significantly decreased the NTL in regions with many restaurants, indicating the effectiveness of the order and its negative economic/business impacts on restaurants. Interestingly, this order increased the NTL in other areas, such as in residential areas. In contrast to previous studies focused on demand-side factors, our study revealed the importance of supply-side factors in explaining the impact of Japanese government policy against COVID-19 in the first half of 2020.

During past shocks (e.g., the 2008-2009 global financial crisis), the services trade was found to be more resilient than the goods trade; however, the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has restricted cross-border mobility, which is disastrous to the services trade because it often requires physical proximity between suppliers and consumers. We empirically examined the impact of COVID-19 on the services trade using quarterly data from 146 countries in 2019 and 2020. Its severity is measured according to the number of cases, the number of deaths, and an index measuring the severity of lockdown orders. We found that the pandemic had a more significantly negative impact on the services trade than the goods trade, particularly on the import side. Moreover, the extent of the impact varied among disaggregated services sectors, reflecting the nature of services. Travel services were the most severely affected, followed by transport and construction services, which are largely related to the international movement of people and goods. On the other hand, other services typically provided as cross-border supply, including computer services, experienced almost no significant effect.

Japan has experienced several appreciation episodes. These appreciations may squeeze profit margins and lower export volumes. This paper investigates whether firms can weather appreciation periods by producing differentiated rather than commoditized products. To do this it investigates different sectors within the Japanese transportation equipment industry. Results from estimating pricing-to-market (PTM) coefficients indicate that firms producing differentiated products can pass-through more of exchange rate appreciations into higher foreign currency prices and thus better preserve their profit margins. Results from estimating trade elasticities are consistent with the PTM results and indicate that the automobile industry has exported much less than predicted after the yen depreciated in 2012. Finally, estimates of the stock market exposure across sectors indicates that the profitability of firms producing differentiated products is less exposed to appreciations. Producing differentiated, knowledge-intensive goods can thus help firms to survive periods.

The Great East Japan Earthquake created health hazards for many people. Using Panel Data gathered in Iwanuma city, Japan, at two points in time (in 2010 before the quake, and in 2013 after the quake), we found that the high degree of housing damage negatively affected victims' self rated health (SRH) (direct effect), and decreased the levels of their social connections, which in turn also had a harmful effect on their SRH (indirect effect). We also found that although the direct impacts of earthquakes disappear relatively quickly, the harmful indirect effects associated with a decrease in social connections are slower to dissipate. We conducted a first-difference two-step GMM estimation to consider the possible problem of endogeneity. The results support the above conclusion, and show that in the short-term, the indirect impacts of the earthquake accounted for 55% of all the impacts experienced.

This study compared the changes in employment in urban areas in Korea, where a large number of people were quarantined by the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome epidemic, to those in rural areas, where only a small number of people were quarantined using the difference-in-difference approach. The results indicate that the urban labor market experienced a direct effect in terms of a reduction in employment of the group vulnerable to the epidemic while the rural labor market experienced an indirect effect on its economy through a reduction in employment resulting from a decline in consumption and leisure activities. If one looks into the employment in the accommodation and leisure industry, which sustained the most severe blow, dropped to its lowest level right after the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak. The rural leisure and accommodation industries are highly likely to be dependent on consumption and spending from urban areas. The results suggest that the rural labor market was influenced by the spillover/external effects caused by behavioral changes among people in urban areas due to fear of infection. Thus, this empirical analysis can be used to customize policy to support regions that can be negatively impacted by spillovers due to epidemic in order to respond against economic stresses.