Pre-war baseball attendance data afford a unique opportunity to assess how leisure spending fared not only through deflation but also after such shocks as the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Long-run analysis via a vector error correction model (VECM) reveals significant cointegration of baseball attendance with both prices and output. A long-run positive relationship with prices offers evidence of a negative impact of deflation on leisure spending, suggesting that deflation is indeed more to be feared than inflation. There are also apparent parallels between the post-pandemic boom in leisure spending in 1919 and the post-2020 experience.

战前棒球出勤率数据提供了一个独特的机会来评估休闲支出的表现，不仅是在通货紧缩期间，而且在 1918 年西班牙流感和 1929 年华尔街崩盘等冲击之后。通过矢量误差校正模型 (VECM) 进行的长期分析揭示了棒球出勤率与价格和产出的显着协整关系。与价格的长期正相关关系提供了通货紧缩对休闲支出的负面影响的证据，这表明通货紧缩确实比通货膨胀更令人担忧。1919 年大流行后休闲支出的繁荣与 2020 年后的经历也有明显的相似之处。