Report summary
The impact of the epidemic on consumption can be divided into immediate impact and long tail impact. The immediate impact is mainly reflected through the loss of consumption scenes, while the long tail impact is more transmitted through the way of residents' income. When quantitatively measuring the impact of the epidemic, it is more to measure the immediate impact when the epidemic occurs. Quantitative measurement methods are mainly divided into two categories: scenario simulation method and surrogate variable method.
The scenario simulation method mainly compares the current epidemic situation with similar periods in history, and observes the decline of consumption in similar periods of epidemic development in history, so as to obtain the impact of the epidemic on consumption. Since 2021, the impact of the epidemic has basically shown local characteristics, and there is almost no major outbreak across the country. Therefore, by repeating the downward range of consumption in cities with previous outbreaks, we can simulate the downward range of consumption in cities with current outbreaks, so as to obtain the impact on consumption across the country.
Four rounds of outbreaks occurred in 2021. Select the main cities affected by each round of outbreaks with monthly consumption data to observe the gap between the consumption growth rate of these cities and that of other parts of the country except this city, and get the impact of the epidemic on local consumption. From the performance of Harbin, Nanjing, Zhengzhou and Xiamen, basically in the month of the outbreak of the epidemic, the total retail sales of social consumers will lose about 10% - 20%.
The worst hit cities in this round of epidemic are Shanghai, Changchun and Jilin. Their consumption damage in March may be more than 20%. From the proportion of the total social consumer retail sales of these three cities in the country, Shanghai accounts for 4.1%, Changchun and Jilin account for 0.5% and 0.1% respectively. Among other cities with high-risk areas in March, it accounted for 14.5% of the total retail sales of social consumers in China. If the consumption loss of these cities recovers between 10% - 20%, the growth rate of national consumption in March may fall by 2.4% - 4%.
The impact of the epidemic on consumption, especially even if the impact mainly restricts consumption by restricting travel. Therefore, the intensity of traffic travel can be used as the proxy variable of the epidemic. The lower it is, the higher the severity of the epidemic blockade is, the more obvious the restriction on consumption will be. At the same time, this index can also measure the time of the epidemic.
The first proxy variable is the congestion delay index. After removing the data from Hong Kong, first make an arithmetic average of the congestion delay index of the remaining 99 cities, and compare it with the growth rate of total social consumer retail sales after the epidemic. It can be found that this is a better proxy variable, and the fitting degree has reached 77.5%. The congestion delay index fell by an average of 4.6% in March this year. If the consumption growth rate is calculated as a proxy variable, the consumption growth rate may fall by about 3% in March.
The second proxy variable is the subway passenger volume in the top ten cities, and its goodness of fit reaches 92.5%. The subway passenger volume in the top ten cities decreased by 25.9% year-on-year in March. Therefore, the national consumption may decrease by about 1.2% in March.
However, either scenario simulation method or proxy variable method may only reflect the immediate impact of the epidemic, but in fact, the impact of the epidemic on Residents' income growth and income distribution may be long-term, so it is not appropriate to be too optimistic about the recovery speed of residents' consumption after the epidemic is controlled.
