Back to Trend: COVID Effects on E-commerce in 44 Countries
We study online spending shares in 44 economies and 26 industries during the COVID-19 pandemic, using online transaction data from Mastercard. The online shares of total credit card transactions surged during the pandemic during lockdowns, but since returned to pre-pandemic trends in most countries. The differences between countries are strongly correlated with the mobility and fiscal measures. There is little evidence of permanent structural changes in ecommerce spending patterns. Finally, we estimate that COVID-19-related restrictions on in-person spending imposed average welfare costs of 7 percent across countries.