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Fearing the COVID-19 infection, people began to avoid eating out and eating at home. Simultaneously, they began using meal delivery services. Numerous studies have assessed the impact of COVID-19 on various economic activities. However, its effects on food consumption patterns have not yet been fully examined. By analyzing household spending data from 1448 households in Tokyo, Tokai, and Kinki areas of Japan, we observed changes in food spending before and after the pandemic. During the emergency, the share of expenditures on food-away-from-home (FAFH) decreased by 1.8%, the share of expenditures on food-at-home (FAH) increased by 0.5%, and the share of expenditures on food delivery services (FDS) increased by 1.3% for all eligible households. However, the extent of the shift from FAFH to FAH and FDS varied widely across households. Single-person and single-parent households continued to rely on FAFH during the pandemic, whereas parent-child households shifted more to FAH. This suggests that time-constrained households could not prioritize meal preparation even during the pandemic. While various policies have recently been introduced to promote healthy eating at home, our empirical findings suggest that policies to ease household time constraints are simultaneously required for these programs to work.

Households use various energy sources for many purposes. Past studies have not investigated how much CO2 emissions change when households with similar socioeconomic characteristics choose different energy source combinations. In this study, we estimate the difference household energy source selection makes in winter CO2 emissions through a microdata analysis of 29,887 households randomly selected from whole Japan. Since socioeconomic characteristics of households affect both energy source selection and energy consumption, the impact of energy source selection on CO2 emissions cannot be assessed by simply comparing CO2 emissions among households using different energy sources. Therefore, we employ a selection bias correction model characterized by two stages, energy source selection and energy consumption. Our empirical results reveal that households using various energy source combinations increase CO2 emissions at different speeds with decreases in temperature. Households primarily using electricity and kerosene increase CO2 emissions faster than households simultaneously using gases. This result casts doubt on the promotion of fully electrified houses and at the same time encourages gas use in winter.

Households consider the relative price among various energy sources while selecting the ideal energy source for use in their daily lives. Carbon tax influences the energy choices of households through changes in the relative price among various energy sources. As the rate of carbon tax increases, the cost advantage of inexpensive energy source toward expensive energy source will diminish. Therefore, we expect that households will move from inexpensive to expensive energy. We explore the effect of carbon taxes on household energy source combinations by conducting a microdata analysis of Japanese households. Our results show that increased carbon tax leads to an increased percentage of households using gas, and reduced percentage of households selecting full electrification or kerosene.