Household stockpiling in response to the Covid-19 pandemic: empirical evidence from Vietnam

The current Covid-19 pandemic has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths globally. As a consequence, a myriad of concomitant economic and social activities has been frozen. Many countries have had to enforce border blockages, travel restrictions and quarantine. The pandemic has changed consumers’ attitudes significantly and driven individuals and households to the state of panic buying. This paper examines the household stockpiling in Vietnam in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the data across the country. The empirical results show that householders’ education and household sizes are positively associated with the propensity that a household stocks up. However, the likelihood of a family stockpiling is lowered when members receive information about the pandemic from formal sources. There are also notable differences among the essential items being stockpiled by different households. Specifically, households living in urban areas or near (super)markets are more inclined to stock up food than other goods. By contrast, households with members working as doctors tend to spend a large portion of their stockpiling budget on medication.