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Prices and inflation in Austria during the COVID-19 crisis – an analysis based on online price data

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Abstract

To shed light on price developments during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria, we analyze online price data collected from April to August 2020 by means of webscraping. Our analysis focuses on product categories that received special attention during the COVID-19 crisis, such as food and medical products. In contrast to what has been reported in the media, we find only small price changes for most product categories over the observation period. For food, nonalcoholic beverages, personal care products and IT equipment, we find small price decreases. Prices for alcoholic beverages remained broadly stable. Medical products and delivered meals saw very small price increases. When comparing price changes derived from our online price dataset with monthly price changes as reported in official inflation statistics, we find similarities for some product categories but also considerable differences for others. These differences are most likely attributable to methodological differences in data collection. For the analysis of price developments, we find that webscraped data are a useful data source complementary to data from official inflation statistics.

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  • Christian Beer & Fabio Rumler & Joel Tölgyes, 2021. "Prices and inflation in Austria during the COVID-19 crisis – an analysis based on online price data," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q4/20-Q1/, pages 65-75.
    • Handle: RePEc:onb:oenbmp:y:2021:i:q4/20-q1/21:b:3
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    1. Scott R Baker & Robert A Farrokhnia & Steffen Meyer & Michaela Pagel & Constantine Yannelis & Jeffrey Pontiff, 0. "How Does Household Spending Respond to an Epidemic? Consumption during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 834-862.
    2. Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald & Fabio Rumler, 2019. "Challenges for measuring inflation in a digital world from a monetary policy perspective," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q3/19, pages 42-53.
    3. Paweł Macias & Damian Stelmasiak, 2019. "Food inflation nowcasting with web scraped data," NBP Working Papers 302, Narodowy Bank Polski.
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    Cited by:

    1. Henkel, Lukas & Wieland, Elisabeth & Błażejowska, Aneta & Conflitti, Cristina & Fabo, Brian & Fadejeva, Ludmila & Jonckheere, Jana & Karadi, Peter & Macias, Paweł & Menz, Jan-Oliver & Seiler, Pascal &, 2023. "Price setting during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic," Occasional Paper Series 324, European Central Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    inflation; price developments; COVID-19; webscraping; online shops;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access

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