Xavier is an IFS Research Associate, based at the London School of Econonomics, whose research areas include public economics, the economics of innovation, and the economics of inequality.
We use real‐time scanner data in Great Britain during the COVID‐19 pandemic to investigate the drivers of the inflationary spike at the beginning of lockdown and to quantify the impact of high‐frequency changes in shopping behaviours and promotions on inflation measurement.
We use real-time scanner data in Great Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate the drivers of the inflationary spike at the beginning of lockdown and to quantify the impact of high-frequency changes in shopping behaviours and promotions on inflation measurement.
In this briefing note, we use comprehensive real-time data on grocery purchases and prices in Great Britain to show how inflation and promotional activity has evolved up until the beginning of August 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic led many countries to implement social distancing, lockdowns and travel restrictions, which have resulted in a collapse in the world economy unprecedented in peacetime.