Consumer Time Budgets and Grocery Shopping Behavior

Abstract

We study whether and how the availability of incremental time associated with retirement and unemployment affects the types of products households buy. For this, we develop a new theoretical model of the composition and size of the grocery shopping basket subject to money and time constraints. We construct a novel household panel data set that combines purchase records for grocery goods with information on labor market status and other demographics. We use the data to document that, in line with predictions from the model, consumers buy more varieties and generally shift their spending into products that take more time to turn them into consumption experiences.

Keywords: consumer purchase behavior, household production, demand for variety, time use, retirement.