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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: COVID-19 and Supply Chain Disruptions

Author

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  • Kanika Mahajan

    (Department of Economics, Ashoka University)

  • Shekhar Tomar

    (Indian School of Business)

Abstract

This paper looks at the disruption in food supply chains due to COVID-19 induced economic shutdown in India. We use a novel dataset from one of the largest online grocery retailers to look at the impact on product availability and prices in three major cities. We find that product availability falls by 10 percent for vegetables, fruits, and edible oils, while there is a minimal impact on their prices. We show that supply chain disruption is the main driver behind the observed fall in availability. We combine online retail data with distance to production zones and find that the fall in availability is larger for products that are cultivated or manufactured farther from the retail centers. These findings have direct policy implications for supply chain management during pandemics.

Suggested Citation

  • Kanika Mahajan & Shekhar Tomar, 2020. "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: COVID-19 and Supply Chain Disruptions," Working Papers 28, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:28
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Narayanan, Sudha & Saha, Shree, 2020. "Urban food markets and the COVID-19 lockdown in India," SocArXiv fdgky, Center for Open Science.
    2. Narayan, Sudha & Saha, Shree, 2020. "One Step Behind: The Government of India and Agricultural Policy During the Covid-19 Lockdown," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 10(1), July.
    3. Katsushi S. Imai & Nidhi Kaicker & Raghav Gaiha, 2020. "The Covid-19 Impact on Agricultural Market Arrivals and Prices in India: A Panel VAR Approach," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2010, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    4. Deepak Varshney & Devesh Roy & J. V. Meenakshi, 2023. "Impact of COVID-19 on Agricultural Markets: Assessing the Roles of Commodity Characteristics, Disease Caseload, and Market Reforms," India Studies in Business and Economics, in: Indrani Gupta & Mausumi Das (ed.), Contextualizing the COVID Pandemic in India, chapter 0, pages 249-271, Springer.
    5. Kumar, Pavan & Singh, S.S. & Pandey, A.K. & Singh, Ram Kumar & Srivastava, Prashant Kumar & Kumar, Manoj & Dubey, Shantanu Kumar & Sah, Uma & Nandan, Rajiv & Singh, Susheel Kumar & Agrawal, Priyanshi , 2021. "Multi-level impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on agricultural systems in India: The case of Uttar Pradesh," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    6. Ozdemir, Dilek & Sharma, Mahak & Dhir, Amandeep & Daim, Tugrul, 2022. "Supply chain resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    7. Hassan Younis & Malek Alsharairi & Hammad Younes & Balan Sundarakani, 2023. "The impact of COVID-19 on supply chains: systematic review and future research directions," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1-31, September.

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    Keywords

    COVID-19;

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