IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ufl/wpaper/001007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shocks to Inflation Expectations

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan J Adams

    (Department of Economics, University of Florida)

  • Philip Barrett

    (International Monetary Fund)

Abstract

The consensus among central bankers is that higher inflation expectations can drive up inflation today, requiring tighter policy. We assess this by devising a novel method for identifying shocks to inflation expectations: we run a structural VAR, where the expectation shock is the single dimension in the time series that causes forecasts to depart from those implied by rational expectations. We measure these shocks for inflation expectations, label them ``sentiment shocks", and study their effects on the macroeconomy. Using data on several measures of inflation expectations and other time series for the United States, we find that a positive sentiment shock causes output and interest rates to fall, but barely affects inflation. These results are a puzzle, incompatible with the standard New Keynesian model which predicts inflation and interest rates should increase.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan J Adams & Philip Barrett, 2022. "Shocks to Inflation Expectations," Working Papers 001007, University of Florida, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ufl:wpaper:001007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/crjaggvk8lzipb8cb8da8/inflation_sentiments.pdf?rlkey=c07j75bxpqv1a21n8wct29r8v&dl=1
    File Function: First version, 02-02-2022
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2006. "Can Rational Expectations Sticky-Price Models Explain Inflation Dynamics?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 303-320, March.
    2. Clements, Michael P. & Galvão, Ana Beatriz, 2021. "Measuring the effects of expectations shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Leduc, Sylvain & Sill, Keith & Stark, Tom, 2007. "Self-fulfilling expectations and the inflation of the 1970s: Evidence from the Livingston Survey," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 433-459, March.
    5. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    6. Rudd, Jeremy & Whelan, Karl, 2005. "New tests of the new-Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1167-1181, September.
    7. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    8. Andrei A Levchenko & Nitya Pandalai-Nayar, 2020. "Tfp, News, and “Sentiments”: the International Transmission of Business Cycles," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 302-341.
    9. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    10. Olivier J. Blanchard & Jean-Paul L'Huillier & Guido Lorenzoni, 2013. "News, Noise, and Fluctuations: An Empirical Exploration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 3045-3070, December.
    11. Andrea Gazzani, 2020. "News and noise bubbles in the housing market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 46-72, April.
    12. Sylvain Leduc & Keith Sill, 2013. "Expectations and Economic Fluctuations: An Analysis Using Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1352-1367, October.
    13. Barsky, Robert B. & Sims, Eric R., 2011. "News shocks and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 273-289.
    14. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Is the Phillips Curve Alive and Well after All? Inflation Expectations and the Missing Disinflation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 197-232, January.
    15. Olivier Coibion, 2012. "Are the Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks Big or Small?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-32, April.
    16. Sophocles N. Brissimis & Nicholas S. Magginas, 2008. "Inflation Forecasts and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 4(2), pages 1-22, June.
    17. Andresa Lagerborg & Evi Pappa & Morten O Ravn, 2023. "Sentimental Business Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(3), pages 1358-1393.
    18. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    19. Nicholson, William B. & Matteson, David S. & Bien, Jacob, 2017. "VARX-L: Structured regularization for large vector autoregressions with exogenous variables," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 627-651.
    20. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Ascari, Guido & Fasani, Stefano & Grazzini, Jakob & Rossi, Lorenza, 2023. "Endogenous uncertainty and the macroeconomic impact of shocks to inflation expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(S), pages 48-63.
    22. Benjamin Wong, 2015. "Do Inflation Expectations Propagate the Inflationary Impact of Real Oil Price Shocks?: Evidence from the Michigan Survey," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(8), pages 1673-1689, December.
    23. Mario Forni & Luca Gambetti & Marco Lippi & Luca Sala, 2017. "Noisy News in Business Cycles," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 122-152, October.
    24. Ryan Chahrour & Kyle Jurado, 2018. "News or Noise? The Missing Link," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(7), pages 1702-1736, July.
    25. Diego R. Känzig, 2021. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Oil Supply News: Evidence from OPEC Announcements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(4), pages 1092-1125, April.
    26. Sophocles Mavroeidis & Mikkel Plagborg-Møller & James H. Stock, 2014. "Empirical Evidence on Inflation Expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 124-188, March.
    27. Milani, Fabio, 2017. "Sentiment and the U.S. business cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 289-311.
    28. Xavier Gabaix, 2020. "A Behavioral New Keynesian Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2271-2327, August.
    29. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1.
    30. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2021. "Determinacy without the Taylor Principle," NBER Working Papers 28881, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    31. Roberts, John M., 1997. "Is inflation sticky?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 173-196, July.
    32. Robert B. Barsky & Eric R. Sims, 2012. "Information, Animal Spirits, and the Meaning of Innovations in Consumer Confidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1343-1377, June.
    33. Binder, Carola C., 2017. "Measuring uncertainty based on rounding: New method and application to inflation expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-12.
    34. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    35. Klaus Adam & Mario Padula, 2011. "Inflation Dynamics And Subjective Expectations In The United States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(1), pages 13-25, January.
    36. Ricardo Nunes, 2010. "Inflation Dynamics: The Role of Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(6), pages 1161-1172, September.
    37. Ryan Chahrour & Kyle Jurado, 2022. "Recoverability and Expectations-Driven Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 214-239.
    38. Gwangmin Kim & Carola Binder, 2023. "Learning-through-Survey in Inflation Expectations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 254-278, April.
    39. Paul Beaudry & Bernd Lucke, 2010. "Letting Different Views about Business Cycles Compete," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 413-455, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Beladi, Hamid & Choudhary, Munir A S & Parai, Amar K, 1993. "Rational and Adaptive Expectations in the Present Value Model of Hyperinflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(3), pages 511-514, August.
    41. Ben S. Bernanke & Jean Boivin & Piotr Eliasz, 2005. "Measuring the Effects of Monetary Policy: A Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 387-422.
    42. Jonung, Lars, 1981. "Perceived and Expected Rates of Inflation in Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 961-968, December.
    43. Fabio Milani, 2011. "Expectation Shocks and Learning as Drivers of the Business Cycle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 379-401, May.
    44. John H. Cochrane, 1994. "Permanent and Transitory Components of GNP and Stock Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 241-265.
    45. Doh, Taeyoung & Smith, A. Lee, 2022. "A new approach to integrating expectations into VAR models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 24-43.
    46. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Paul Krugman, 2012. "Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap: A Fisher-Minsky-Koo Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1469-1513.
    47. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    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. An, Zidong & Sheng, Xuguang Simon & Zheng, Xinye, 2023. "What is the role of perceived oil price shocks in inflation expectations?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Rodion V. Balakin & Yuliya A. Steshenko, 2024. "Review of Approaches to Assessing the Impact of New Challenges on the Economy and Certain Aspects of Taxation," Finansovyj žhurnal — Financial Journal, Financial Research Institute, Moscow 125375, Russia, issue 3, pages 68-85, June.
    3. Wildauer, Rafael & Kohler, Karsten & Aboobaker, Adam & Guschanski, Alexander, 2023. "Energy price shocks, conflict inflation, and income distribution in a three-sector model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).

    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. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    2. Nadav Ben Zeev, 2019. "Is There A Single Shock That Drives The Majority Of Business Cycle Fluctuations?," Working Papers 1906, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    3. Zeno Enders & Michael Kleemann & Gernot J. Muller, 2021. "Growth Expectations, Undue Optimism, and Short-Run Fluctuations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(5), pages 905-921, December.
    4. Hirose, Yasuo & Kurozumi, Takushi, 2021. "Identifying News Shocks With Forecast Data," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(6), pages 1442-1471, September.
    5. Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia, 2022. "Forecast Revisions as Instruments for News Shocks," International Finance Discussion Papers 1341, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Adams, Jonathan J., 2023. "Moderating noise-driven macroeconomic fluctuations under dispersed information," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    7. Paul Hubert & Harun Mirza, 2019. "The role of forward‐ and backward‐looking information for inflation expectations formation," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(8), pages 733-748, December.
    8. Alexander Doser & Ricardo Nunes & Nikhil Rao & Viacheslav Sheremirov, 2023. "Inflation expectations and nonlinearities in the Phillips curve," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 453-471, June.
    9. Del Negro, Marco & Eusepi, Stefano, 2011. "Fitting observed inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2105-2131.
    10. Miyamoto, Wataru & Nguyen, Thuy Lan, 2020. "The expectational effects of news in business cycles: Evidence from forecast data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 184-200.
    11. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2014. "News-Driven Business Cycles: Insights and Challenges," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(4), pages 993-1074, December.
    12. Kim, Insu & Kim, Young Se, 2019. "Inattentive agents and inflation forecast error dynamics: A Bayesian DSGE approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    13. George-Marios Angeletos, 2018. "Frictional Coordination," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 563-603.
    14. Ben Zeev, Nadav, 2018. "What can we learn about news shocks from the late 1990s and early 2000s boom-bust period?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 94-105.
    15. Sophocles Mavroeidis & Mikkel Plagborg-Møller & James H. Stock, 2014. "Empirical Evidence on Inflation Expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 124-188, March.
    16. Fabio Milani, 2012. "The Modeling of Expectations in Empirical DSGE Models: A Survey," Advances in Econometrics, in: DSGE Models in Macroeconomics: Estimation, Evaluation, and New Developments, pages 3-38, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    17. Dunbar, Kwamie & Owusu-Amoako, Johnson, 2023. "Predicting inflation expectations: A habit-based explanation under hedging," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    18. Boivin, Jean & Kiley, Michael T. & Mishkin, Frederic S., 2010. "How Has the Monetary Transmission Mechanism Evolved Over Time?," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 8, pages 369-422, Elsevier.
    19. Brianti, Marco & Cormun, Vito, 2023. "Expectation-Driven Boom-Bust Cycles," Working Papers 2023-4, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    20. Kenza Benhima & Céline Poilly, 2017. "Do Misperceptions about Demand Matter? Theory and Evidence," Working Papers halshs-01518467, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:ufl:wpaper:001007. 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: Jonathan Adams (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eduflus.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.