IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_414_17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What does the heterogeneity of the inflation expectations of Italian firms tell us?

Author

Listed:
  • Laura Bartiloro

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Marco Bottone

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Alfonso Rosolia

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

Quite a lot. We investigate how the cross-sectional heterogeneity of firms� inflation expectations reflects information availability and awareness of recent macroeconomic developments, observable firm characteristics and broader macroeconomic developments using the Bank of Italy�s survey on businesses� inflation and growth expectations. We find that: on average about half of the dispersion of expectations is traceable to a lack of information about the most recent price developments; firms incorporate new information into their expectations within a quarter; the dispersion of expectations is related in a statistically significant way to some important aggregate economic variables, and it is greater when current inflation is farther away from the ECB�s price stability goal. Since 2015 the weight attributed to prior beliefs of low inflation has steadily increased and the uncertainty surrounding them has decreased. Furthermore, since 2014 there has no longer been an empirical connection between the dispersion of expectations and the distance from the ECB price stability. These two facts suggest an increased risk of inflation expectations being de-anchored."

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Bartiloro & Marco Bottone & Alfonso Rosolia, 2017. "What does the heterogeneity of the inflation expectations of Italian firms tell us?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 414, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_414_17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2017-0414/QEF_414_17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Armantier & Scott Nelson & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2016. "The Price Is Right: Updating Inflation Expectations in a Randomized Price Information Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(3), pages 503-523, July.
    2. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Rupal Kamdar, 2018. "The Formation of Expectations, Inflation, and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1447-1491, December.
    3. Lena Boneva & James Cloyne & Martin Weale & Tomasz Wieladek, 2016. "The Effect of Unconventional Monetary Policy on Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Firms in the United Kingdom," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(3), pages 161-195, September.
    4. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis & Justin Wolfers, 2004. "Disagreement about Inflation Expectations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 209-270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    6. Ball, Laurence & Gregory Mankiw, N. & Reis, Ricardo, 2005. "Monetary policy for inattentive economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 703-725, May.
    7. Vitor Gaspar & Frank Smets & David Vestin, 2006. "Adaptive Learning, Persistence, and Optimal Monetary Policy," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 376-385, 04-05.
    8. Locarno, Alberto & Delle Monache, Davide & Busetti, Fabio & Gerali, Andrea, 2017. "Trust, but verify. De-anchoring of inflation expectations under learning and heterogeneity," Working Paper Series 1994, European Central Bank.
    9. Filippo Natoli & Laura Sigalotti, 2017. "An indicator of inflation expectations anchoring," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1103, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Alberto Cavallo & Guillermo Cruces & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2017. "Inflation Expectations, Learning, and Supermarket Prices: Evidence from Survey Experiments," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 1-35, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Tiziano Ropele, 2020. "Inflation Expectations and Firm Decisions: New Causal Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 165-219.
    2. Adriana Grasso & Tiziano Ropele, 2018. "Firms’ inflation expectations and investment plans," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1203, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Antonio M. Conti & Concetta Gigante, 2018. "Weakness in Italy�s core inflation and the Phillips curve: the role of labour and financial indicators," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 466, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Monique B. Reid & Pierre L. Siklos, 2022. "How Firms and Experts View The Phillips Curve: Evidence from Individual and Aggregate Data from South Africa," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(12), pages 3355-3376, September.
    5. Alfonso Rosolia, 2021. "Does information about current inflation affect expectations and decisions? Another look at Italian firms," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1353, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    6. Cristina Conflitti & Roberta Zizza, 2018. "What�s behind firms� inflation forecasts?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 465, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    7. Marco Bottone & Alfonso Rosolia, 2019. "Monetary policy, firms’ inflation expectations and prices: causal evidence from firm-level data," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1218, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Goldfayn-Frank, Olga & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2018. "How do consumers adapt to a new environment in their economic forecasting? Evidence from the German reunification," IMFS Working Paper Series 129, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    2. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    3. Link, Sebastian & Peichl, Andreas & Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Information frictions among firms and households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-115.
    4. Camille Cornand & Paul Hubert, 2021. "Information frictions in inflation expectations among five types of economic agents," Working Papers halshs-03351632, HAL.
    5. Peter Andrebriq & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2958-2991.
    6. Bernardo Candia & Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2020. "Communication and the Beliefs of Economic Agents," NBER Working Papers 27800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Heiner Mikosch & Christopher Roth & Samad Sarferaz & Johannes Wohlfart, 2024. "Uncertainty and Information Acquisition: Evidence from Firms and Households," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 375-405, April.
    8. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2018. "Friedman's Presidential Address in the Evolution of Macroeconomic Thought," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 81-96, Winter.
    9. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kumar, Saten & Pedemonte, Mathieu, 2020. "Inflation expectations as a policy tool?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    10. Mankiw, N Gregory, 2017. "Friedman’s Presidential Address in the Evolution of Macroeconomic Thought," CEPR Discussion Papers 12442, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2022. "Information frictions across various types of inflation expectations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    12. Andrade, Philippe & Gautier, Erwan & Mengus, Eric, 2023. "What matters in households’ inflation expectations?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 50-68.
    13. Gaurav Kumar Singh & Tathagata Bandyopadhyay, 2024. "Determinants of disagreement: Learning from inflation expectations survey of households," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 326-343, March.
    14. Alberto Cavallo & Guillermo Cruces & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2017. "Inflation Expectations, Learning, and Supermarket Prices: Evidence from Survey Experiments," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 1-35, July.
    15. Lukas Buchheim & Sebastian Link, 2017. "The Effect of Disaggregate Information on the Expectation Formation of Firms," CESifo Working Paper Series 6768, CESifo.
    16. Anat Bracha & Jenny Tang, 2022. "Inflation Levels and (In)Attention," Working Papers 22-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    17. Goldfayn-Frank, Olga & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2019. "How Do Consumers Adapt to a New Environment in their economic forecasting? Evidence from the German Reunification," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203668, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Ángelo Gutiérrez-Daza, 2024. "Business Cycles when Consumers Learn by Shopping," Working Papers 2024-12, Banco de México.
    19. Camille Cornand & Paul Hubert, 2021. "Information frictions in inflation expectations among five types of economic agents," Working Papers hal-03468918, HAL.
    20. Kevin Lansing, 2009. "Time Varying U.S. Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(2), pages 304-326, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation Expectations; Learning; Firms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_414_17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.