IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-030-93169-8_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Rationing During COVID-19: Is an ‘Equal Share’ Always Fair?

In: Consumption, Production, and Entrepreneurship in the Time of Coronavirus

Author

Listed:
  • Jane Brown

    (Newcastle University)

  • Chrysostomos Apostolidis

    (Durham University)

Abstract

In response to grocery shortages during COVID-19, UK supermarkets limited the number of products consumers could buy, to keep products on the shelves for longer, discourage stockpiling, and help fairer distribution. The effectiveness of this strategy has been questioned, as shortages continued for months and reappeared during further waves of the virus. To better understand the consumer perspective, primary data collected online from over 400 respondents during the UK’s initial lockdown period has been analyzed. By drawing on key concepts from hoarding and scarcity literature, such as commodity theory, the bandwagon effect, and regret theory, we identify factors that influence the effectiveness of the pandemic rationing policies. The broader themes of consumer (dis)empowerment, routine disruption, and emotional fallout are considered, with recommendations for future strategies provided. The findings highlight the importance of timing, consistency, and communication for implemented strategies, and the need to consider the difference between ‘equal’ and ‘fair’ product distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Jane Brown & Chrysostomos Apostolidis, 2022. "Rationing During COVID-19: Is an ‘Equal Share’ Always Fair?," Springer Books, in: Elena Gallitto & Marta Massi & Paul Harrison (ed.), Consumption, Production, and Entrepreneurship in the Time of Coronavirus, chapter 0, pages 11-37, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-93169-8_2
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-93169-8_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-93169-8_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.