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. 2021 Jul 24;189:443–469. doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.04.036

Table A4.

Robustness check - alternate definition of inflation uncertainty and disagreement standard deviations.

Inflation uncertainty Inflation disagreement
(1) (2) (3) (4)
1-yr 3-yr 1-yr 3-yr
Pre-pandemic −0.07 −0.04 −0.42∗∗∗ −0.25
(0.08) (0.08) (0.15) (0.15)
Initial period 0.59∗∗∗ 0.45∗∗∗ 2.11∗∗∗ 1.17∗∗∗
(0.12) (0.12) (0.53) (0.41)
Lockdown 0.79∗∗∗ 0.55∗∗∗ 1.96∗∗∗ 1.12∗∗∗
(0.11) (0.10) (0.30) (0.31)
Reopening 0.66∗∗∗ 0.41∗∗∗ 1.06∗∗∗ 0.44∗∗
(0.12) (0.11) (0.25) (0.21)
Resurgence 0.68∗∗∗ 0.52∗∗∗ 0.94∗∗∗ 0.39∗∗
(0.13) (0.13) (0.21) (0.20)
N 53,032 53,111 1279 1279
R2 0.71 0.71 0.17 0.06
Dependent variable mean 2.88 2.91 3.55 3.69
Constant X X X X
Month-of-year FE X X X X
Post-2018 dummy X X X X
Individual FE X X X X
Survey tenure FE X X X X

Notes: The table shows the estimated impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on i) inflation uncertainty, defined here as the standard deviation of the individual inflation beliefs distribution, (columns 1 and 2) and ii) inflation disagreement, defined here as the standard deviation of the distribution of inflation expectations within a day, (columns 3 and 4) at the one-year and three-year ahead horizons. The sample consists of individual survey responses for columns 1 and 2 and daily data for columns 3 and 4 covering the period from January 1, 2017 through August 31, 2020. The number of observations in columns 1 and 2 is the number of person-day observations, and the number of observations in columns 3 and 4 is the number of day observations. The pre-pandemic period is from January 1, 2020 through March 10, 2020. The initial period is from March 11, 2020 through March 26, 2020. The lockdown period is from March 27, 2020 through May 15, 2020. The reopening period is from May 16, 2020 through June 30, 2020. The resurgence period is from July 1, 2020 through August 31, 2020. The Post-2018 dummy is equal to 1 for survey responses recorded after 2018 (January 1, 2019 to August 31, 2020). The data are trimmed biweekly at the top and bottom 2% to remove outliers. Standard errors (in parentheses) are clustered at the individual level in columns 1 and 2, and robust in columns 3 and 4. p < 0.1,∗∗p < 0.05,∗∗∗p < 0.01.