Researcher ORCID Identifier

0009-0006-5859-1984

Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

12-2025

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Darren Filson

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Rights Information

© 2025 Sun Young Byun

Abstract

In this paper, I employ a two-part empirical strategy to explore the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on grocery consumption across U.S. states. First, I use the United States Department of Agriculture's Weekly Retail Food Sales data from 2018-2023 to estimate a time-series panel model. I use the results to test three hypotheses regarding state-level variation in consumption changes and impacts in the initial pandemic period, the remaining pandemic period, and the post-pandemic period. Second, I use the estimated state-level effects as dependent variables in cross-sectional regressions to test three hypotheses linking variation in state-level consumption patterns to economic, demographic, and political characteristics.

Across states, I find consistent evidence of a sharp nationwide increase in grocery spending in early 2020, but substantial variation in how long elevated consumption persisted and how quickly states returned to pre-pandemic norms. Higher-income states exhibited smaller within-COVID departures from pre-COVID trends. Political affiliation emerged as one of the strongest predictors: Republican-leaning states showed smaller within-COVID increases in grocery consumption and faster post-pandemic normalization. These results underscore the importance of integrating economic, behavioral, and political factors to understand how large-scale shocks produce uneven consumption responses across regions.

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