With pent-up demand, people do not usually buy only their normal goods and services, but also spend money on purchases they have forgone for months due to the recession. Typically, durable goods tend to be delayed the most during a recession because they are costlier to purchase. As pent-up demand comes to the market during an economic recovery, businesses will try to ramp up supply to meet the need. For example, during a recession, you may only spend money on groceries, gas, and other necessities you need in order to live and work. However, once the recession is over and you feel more comfortable with the state of the economy, you may spend more money on dining out, entertainment, and more. This is known as your discretionary income.
How Does Pent-Up Demand Work?
People delay purchasing goods and services during a downturn in the economy or a recession. If enough people do this and are eager to buy products in the market once the economy recovers, this will lead to a very high level of demand being unleashed on the market at once. Pent-up demand may cause certain products to become unavailable since there is a rapid increase in spending on them after a period of no or little spending. Pent-up demand can cause inflation if the increase in spending on goods and services is substantial and across many goods. Once demand falls back to normal levels or supply increases to meet demand, prices should adjust downward.
Notable Happenings
Due to the pandemic and shutdowns of businesses in 2020, people delayed purchasing goods and services, which led to pent-up demand. The graph below shows the pent-up demand for durable goods in the United States. This is shown through real personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which is a measure of consumer spending on goods and services. While the line in the graph initially falls because people delayed purchasing durable goods, the pent-up demand for durable goods is evident by the drastic increase of durable-goods purchases over the course of the economic recovery after the pandemic. The graph also shows the impact of stimulus checks on spending. While consumers often delay purchases of durable goods during recessions, this particular period of pent-up demand in 2020 saw higher levels of durable goods being bought during the economic recovery. A large part of this is because of consumers spending more time at home and accomplishing tasks they might have purchased as services before the pandemic. For example, people may not have been eating out frequently at restaurants during the pandemic because they were cooking at home. Once the economic recovery started, people may have spent money to upgrade kitchen appliances to cook at home or may have started dining out again.
