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What can 20 billion financial transactions tell us about the impacts of Covid-19 fiscal transfers?

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Listed:
  • Pongpitch Amatyakul
  • Panchanok Jumrustanasan
  • Pornchanok Tapkham

Abstract

We investigate the impacts of fiscal transfers on households during the Covid-19 recovery period using a novel transaction-level money transfer dataset. The study focuses on direct fiscal transfers in 2021 that occurred as a result of the second major wave of Covid-19 in Thailand and analyses spending patterns for the recipients. We group the recipients by income levels and analyse patterns at the monthly and daily levels. The two main research questions are: (1) How much more spending did the groups make as a proportion of the fiscal stimulus? and (2) Did the stimulus makeup for lost spending during lock-down? We find that overall the recipients spent, on average, 40% of the money received over the first six days and 49% accumulatively over the first three months compared to a matched control group with similar characteristics. Unsurprisingly, the lower income group spent the highest proportion of the money received and the fiscal injection more than covered up for their lost spending during the lock-down period.

Suggested Citation

  • Pongpitch Amatyakul & Panchanok Jumrustanasan & Pornchanok Tapkham, 2023. "What can 20 billion financial transactions tell us about the impacts of Covid-19 fiscal transfers?," BIS Working Papers 1130, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1130
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    impacts of fiscal transfers; Covid-19; transaction-level data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis

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