question: We find that Chinese consumers responded strongly to government restrictions during the COVID‐19 crisis. Our event‐study framework shows that emergency declarations raised average food prices by as much as 7.8 standard deviations of the price change distribution, with a much larger effect on non‐perishable vegetable prices (e.g., 17.0 standard deviations for Chinese cabbage prices). The effects of lockdowns were smaller but longer‐lasting. These results suggest that consumers panic bought non‐perishables under emergency declarations while under lockdowns there was a sustained increase in demand for non‐perishables. Such consumer behavior likely caused sizable losses in consumer welfare, especially among poor households. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Economic Inquiry is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)