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Discrimination in Restaurant Patronage at the Onset of the Covid Pandemic
by Guanting Yi
Pandemics are recurring throughout history, and discrimination toward certain social groups often coexists. I study the causal effect of early Covid pandemic events led by the national first case on Chinese cuisine visits to approximate the effect of consumer discrimination toward Chinese cuisine in the U.S. from December 2019 to April 2020. I find sizeable relative declines of about -9% in Chinese cuisine visits and a larger negative spillover effect of about -14% on Japanese and Korean cuisine visits. Additionally, I find a remarkable amount of heterogeneity in the causal effect along county political affiliation and diversity in race and ethnicity: a county being one-standard-deviation more republican supporting in 2016 was associated with an additional 10% relative drop in Chinese cuisine visits; a county being one-standard-deviation more diverse in race and ethnicity was associated with an additional 7% relative increase in Chinese cuisine visits.
More descriptions are forthcoming.
Graduate student speakers
- Victoria Coan, Sociology
- Alec Rhodes, Sociology
- Guanting Yi, Economics
The City of Columbus and Franklin County are currently recommending masking indoors after the CDC upgraded the county to a “high” COVID-19 community level. IPR strongly encourages masks at all events.