Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on household financial decisions: A consumer vulnerability perspective

This study joins a rapidly growing body of research that investigates the multi-faceted impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on consumers' behavior. Specifically, we examine how the pandemic-induced state of vulnerability impacts consumers' saving, investing, and spending decisions. Using survey data from four different countries (i.e., USA, UK, South Africa, and Mexico), we examine the role of personality on consumer vulnerability, create an index of consumer vulnerability, and establish the role of vulnerability in impacting important financial decisions. We report evidence that perceptions of vulnerability and the pandemic-induced changes in financial and consumption behaviors vary across residents of developed and developing countries. The results indicate that vulnerability is experienced and reflected through a multitude of fears and concerns and is influenced by personality traits (agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, need for material resources, and need for body resources) and can result in increased spending on products/services that are not normally perceived as necessities. Our findings carry important theoretical and managerial implications.