No, you don’t need to hoard toilet paper to prep for a pandemic
Clearing the shelves of toilet paper might be just a way to make us feel more secure in troubling times. (Claire Mueller/Unsplash/)Jay L. Zagorsky is a senior lecturer at Questrom School of Business at Boston University. This story originally featured on The Conversation.The other day I went into Costco to buy some toilet paper. It came as a small shock when I couldn’t find a single roll.The new coronavirus is inspiring panic buying of a variety of household products such as toilet paper in cities across the US and world.While it makes sense to me that masks and hand sanitizer would be in short supply because of the outbreak, I wondered why people would be hoarding toilet paper—a product that is widely produced and doesn’t help protect from a respiratory virus like COVID-19. Toilet paper is becoming so valuable there’s even been at least one armed robbery.As an economist, I...