Urban food prices under lockdown: evidence from Myanmar’s traditional food retail sector during COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Many governments imposed stringent lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. With consumer incomes already depressed, the potential impacts of these measures on urban food prices are of particular concern, especially for poor or vulnerable households. This paper examines changes in urban food prices during lockdown using detailed food price data from family-owned retail shops – an important urban food supplier – in Myanmar’s two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. We find that the supply side of Myanmar’s traditional food retail sector was largely resilient to the shocks and lockdowns over the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Estimates from a fixed effects difference-in-differences model reveal that food prices were 3% higher in townships under lockdown compared to those not under lockdown. Price differences were largest for raw or lightly processed commodities sourced through wholesale markets, which comprise a larger share of urban consumer’s diets. We find no evidence of price gouging as retailer margins were not significantly different under lockdown restrictions. Our results suggest that the traditional food retail sector is an asset for food security, particularly in times of crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban food prices
• traditional food retail
• lockdown
• Myanmar
• COVID-19

Acknowledgment

This work was undertaken as part of the Myanmar Agricultural Policy Support Activity (MAPSA) led by the International Food Policy Research Institute in partnership with Michigan State University. Funding support for this study was provided by the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), the United States Agency of International Development (USAID), and the Livelihoods and Food Security Fund (LIFT).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We follow Beatty et al. (2021) and define price gouging as an abnormal increase in margins above input prices, after controlling for seasonality and longer‐run trends.

2 There are 33 townships in Yangon and 7 in Mandalay. The townships vary in population and geographical size. Mandalay’s townships are relatively more populated than Yangon’s, with an average population of 193,000 and 140,000 people per township, respectively. However, densities are higher in Yangon with 5,400 people per square kilometer compared to just 1,500 in Mandalay (MIMU 2019).

3 Author’s estimates based on the 7-day dietary recall module in the 2017 Myanmar Living Conditions Survey (MLCS).

4 Questionnaires for the August and September survey rounds that included the food price modules are included in supplementary Appendix Figures A1 and A2. All data collection for this study followed approved procedures and human subject research guidelines of a U.S. based institutional review board.

5 In two years prior to the study, both chickpea and rice prices show some variability between March and September. Rice prices ultimately declined in both years, but chickpea prices increased over that period in 2019, and decreased in 2018 (Appendix Figure A1).

6 Mom&pop Myanmar collect shop-level purchase volume data on a somewhat regular basis but unfortunately, they do not capture per product prices. Thus, we are unable to leverage these data as a check on recall biases.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust (LIFT); Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) [Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)]; United States Agency for International Development.