Title page 1

Contents 5

Abstract/Résumé 4

Introduction 7

Section 1. Overview of the literature on using card transactions to measure and understand consumption 9

Section 2. Construction and description of the dataset 10

Section 3. Understanding shifts in everyday spending since the pandemic 26

Conclusion 40

References 41

Annex A. Literature overview 50

Annex B. Transformations of Mastercard spending data 54

Annex C. Supplementary figures and tables 57

Table 1. Correspondence between Merchant Category Codes, COICOP categories, and final consumption expenditure of households 12

Table 2. Summary statistic subnational data 26

Figure 1. The underlying non-adjusted data for monthly spending varies with the number of weekend days 14

Figure 2. Final consumption expenditure of households and card-based spending drifted apart after the pandemic 16

Figure 3. Scale of shifts in cash intensity and other factors in 2024 compared to 2018 across products 17

Figure 4. Card spending captures movements in household consumption over time 19

Figure 5. Restaurant spending and stringency of COVID-19 measures 21

Figure 6. Card-based spending growth is correlated with CPI growth in Spain 22

Figure 7. Card-based monthly spending is correlated to movements in Spanish CPI data 23

Figure 8. Card-based spending and Italian retail trade growth show similar growth dynamics since 2019 24

Figure 9. Variations in subnational card-based data 25

Figure 10. Consumer spending has responded to shocks 28

Figure 11. Everyday spending has been impacted by the pandemic and food and energy price shocks 29

Figure 12. Nominal everyday spending was boosted by price hikes in 2022, while real everyday spending has stagnated 31

Figure 13. Everyday spending has been sluggish since the pandemic in real terms 32

Figure 14. The post-pandemic pick-up in nominal household expenditure reflected the surge in prices 33

Figure 15. Inelastic demand for energy contributes to aggregate nominal everyday spending price hikes 34

Figure 16. Spending developments have varied across different goods and services 35

Figure 17. Subnational trends in everyday spending behaviour before and after COVID-19 36

Figure 18. Regions with relatively low income levels have seen a bigger slowdown in everyday spending 37

Figure 19. Spending adjustment by category across regions 38

Figure 20. Spending responds to real income shocks around the start of the calendar year 39

Figure 21. Restaurant spending in Germany 40

Table A.1. Selected literature on using bank transactions and card data to analyse and forecast household spending patterns 50

Table C.1. Summary statistics of National Accounts Mastercard spending aggregate growth 61

Figure B.1. Examples of subnational beta adjustments 55

Figure C.1. Everyday spending across 12 European economies and over time 57

Figure C.2. Growth rate correlations between Mastercard spending Spanish CPI 58

Figure C.3. Growth rate correlations between Mastercard spending Spanish CPI data for food and clothing 59

Figure C.4. Regional beta-adjustment in Spanish TL2 regions 60

Figure C.5. Regional beta adjustment factor comparison based on the official Spanish regional household final consumption expenditure by... 61