We study the response of daily household spending to the surprise number of fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic, which we label as a pandemic shock. Based on daily forecasts of the number of fatalities, we construct the surprise component as the difference between the actual and the expected number of deaths. We allow for state-dependent effects of the shock depending on the position on the curve of infections. Spending falls after the shock and is particularly sensitive to the shock when the number of new infections is strongly increasing. If the number of infections grows moderately, the drop in spending is smaller. We also estimate the effect of the shock across income quartiles. In each state, low-income households exhibit a significantly larger drop in consumption than high-income households. Thus, consumption inequality increases after a pandemic shock. Our results hold for the US economy and the key US states. The findings remain unchanged if we choose alternative state-variables to separate regimes.

中文翻译：

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大流行冲击和家庭支出*

我们研究了日常家庭支出对 COVID-19 大流行病死亡人数的反应，我们将其标记为大流行性冲击。根据对死亡人数的每日预测，我们将意外成分构建为实际死亡人数与预期死亡人数之间的差异。根据感染曲线上的位置，我们允许休克的状态依赖效应。冲击后支出下降，当新感染人数大幅增加时，支出对冲击特别敏感。如果感染人数适度增长，则支出下降幅度较小。我们还估计了冲击对收入四分位数的影响。在每个州，低收入家庭的消费下降幅度都明显大于高收入家庭。因此，大流行冲击后消费不平等加剧。我们的结果适用于美国经济和美国主要州。如果我们选择替代状态变量来分离制度，结果将保持不变。