IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bubdp1/4755.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do actions speak louder than words? Household expectations of inflation based on micro consumption data

Author

Listed:
  • Inoue, Atsushi
  • Kilian, Lutz
  • Kiraz, Fatma Burcu

Abstract

Survey data on household expectations of inflation are routinely used in economic analysis, yet it is not clear to what extent households are able to articulate their expectations in survey interviews. We propose an alternative approach to recovering households' implicit expectations of inflation from their consumption expenditures. We show that these implicit expectations have predictive power for CPI inflation. They are better predictors of CPI inflation than survey responses, except for highly educated consumers. Moreover, households' implicit inflation expectations respond to inflation news, consistent with recent work on the transmission of information across consumers. The response of consumers' expectations to inflation news tends to increase with their level of education. Our evidence strengthens the case for macroeconomic models with sticky information.

Suggested Citation

  • Inoue, Atsushi & Kilian, Lutz & Kiraz, Fatma Burcu, 2006. "Do actions speak louder than words? Household expectations of inflation based on micro consumption data," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2006,26, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bubdp1:4755
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19655/1/200626dkp.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert B. Barsky & Miles S. Kimball & F. Thomas Juster & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1995. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Survey," NBER Working Papers 5213, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Menil, George & Bhalla, Surjit S, 1975. "Direct Measurement of Popular Price Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(11), pages 169-180, March.
    5. 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.
    6. Gramlich, Edward M, 1983. "Models of Inflation Expectations Formation: A Comparison of Household and Economist Forecasts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 15(2), pages 155-173, May.
    7. Hamilton, James D., 2003. "What is an oil shock?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 363-398, April.
    8. Bryan, Michael F & Gavin, William T, 1986. "Models of Inflation Expectations Formation: A Comparison of Household and Economist Forecasts: A Comment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 18(4), pages 539-544, November.
    9. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert & Wei, Min, 2007. "Do macro variables, asset markets, or surveys forecast inflation better?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1163-1212, May.
    10. Graham Elliott & Ivana Komunjer & Allan Timmermann, 2008. "Biases in Macroeconomic Forecasts: Irrationality or Asymmetric Loss?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 122-157, March.
    11. Costas Meghir & Luigi Pistaferri, 2004. "Income Variance Dynamics and Heterogeneity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 1-32, January.
    12. Inoue, Atsushi & Kilian, Lutz, 2006. "On the selection of forecasting models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 273-306, February.
    13. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    14. Souleles, Nicholas S, 2004. "Expectations, Heterogeneous Forecast Errors, and Consumption: Micro Evidence from the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Surveys," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(1), pages 39-72, February.
    15. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    16. Lusardi, Annamaria, 1996. "Permanent Income, Current Income, and Consumption: Evidence from Two Panel Data Sets," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 14(1), pages 81-90, January.
    17. Sims, Christopher A., 2005. "Rational inattention: a research agenda," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2005,34, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Carroll Christopher Dixon, 2001. "Death to the Log-Linearized Consumption Euler Equation! (And Very Poor Health to the Second-Order Approximation)," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-38, April.
    19. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 2002. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 47-89, January.
    20. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    21. Lutz Kilian, 2008. "Exogenous Oil Supply Shocks: How Big Are They and How Much Do They Matter for the U.S. Economy?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 216-240, May.
    22. Newey, Whitney K. & McFadden, Daniel, 1986. "Large sample estimation and hypothesis testing," Handbook of Econometrics, in: R. F. Engle & D. McFadden (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 36, pages 2111-2245, Elsevier.
    23. Roberts, John M., 1997. "Is inflation sticky?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 173-196, July.
    24. Rich, Robert W, 1989. "Testing the Rationality of Inflation Forecasts from Survey Data: Another Look at the SRC Expected Price Change Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(4), pages 682-686, November.
    25. repec:bla:econom:v:63:y:1996:i:251:p:495-512 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Campbell, John Y & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1990. "Permanent Income, Current Income, and Consumption," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(3), pages 265-279, July.
    27. Grant, Alan P. & Thomas, Lloyd B., 1999. "Inflationary expectations and rationality revisited," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 331-338, March.
    28. Fackler, James & Stanhouse, Bryan, 1977. "Rationality of the Michigan Price Expectations Data: A Note," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 9(4), pages 662-666, November.
    29. Campbell, John Y. & Mankiw, N. Gregory, 1991. "The response of consumption to income : A cross-country investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 723-756, May.
    30. Slesnick, Daniel T, 1992. "Aggregate Consumption and Saving in the Postwar United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 585-597, November.
    31. Roberts, John M, 1995. "New Keynesian Economics and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 975-984, November.
    32. Robert B. Barsky & F. Thomas Juster & Miles S. Kimball & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1997. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 537-579.
    33. John M. Roberts, 1998. "Inflation expectations and the transmission of monetary policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1998-43, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    34. Mariger, Randall P & Shaw, Kathryn, 1993. "Unanticipated Aggregate Disturbances and Tests of the Life-Cycle Consumption Model Using Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(1), pages 48-56, February.
    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. Emily Anderson & Atsushi Inoue & Barbara Rossi, 2016. "Heterogeneous Consumers and Fiscal Policy Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(8), pages 1877-1888, December.
    2. Carrera Cesar, 2012. "Estimating Information Rigidity Using Firms' Survey Data," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-34, June.
    3. Fabio Canova & Luca Gambetti, 2010. "Do Expectations Matter? The Great Moderation Revisited," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 183-205, July.
    4. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Reis, Ricardo, 2010. "Imperfect Information and Aggregate Supply," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 5, pages 183-229, Elsevier.
    5. Yasutomo Murasawa, 2013. "Measuring Inflation Expectations Using Interval-Coded Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(4), pages 602-623, August.
    6. Olivier Armantier & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2015. "Inflation Expectations And Behavior: Do Survey Respondents Act On Their Beliefs?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(2), pages 505-536, May.
    7. Lutz Kilian, 2013. "Structural vector autoregressions," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 22, pages 515-554, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Michael J. Lamla & Sarah Lein, 2010. "The Euro Cash Changeover, Inflation Perceptions and the Media," KOF Working papers 10-254, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    9. Gbaguidi, David, 2012. "La courbe de Phillips : temps d’arbitrage et/ou arbitrage de temps," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(1), pages 87-119, mars.
    10. Eda Gulsen & Hakan Kara, 2020. "Formation of inflation expectations: Does macroeconomic and policy environment matter?," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2017, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    11. Menz, Jan-Oliver & Poppitz, Philipp, 2013. "Households' disagreement on inflation expectations and socioeconomic media exposure in Germany," Discussion Papers 27/2013, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    12. Faust, Jon & Wright, Jonathan H., 2013. "Forecasting Inflation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2-56, Elsevier.
    13. Yavari, Kazem & Najjarzade, Reza & Tavakolian, Hossein & Bahador, Ali, 2016. "Effect of Nominal Exchange Rate Volatility on Output in Iran’s Economy," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 11(4), pages 419-442, October.

    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. Olivier Armantier & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2015. "Inflation Expectations And Behavior: Do Survey Respondents Act On Their Beliefs?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(2), pages 505-536, May.
    2. Berge, Travis J., 2018. "Understanding survey-based inflation expectations," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 788-801.
    3. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2644-2678, August.
    4. Ricardo Nunes, 2010. "Inflation Dynamics: The Role of Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(6), pages 1161-1172, September.
    5. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "What Can Survey Forecasts Tell Us about Information Rigidities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 116-159.
    6. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2020. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts: A comparison with five categories of field expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    7. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6o4qdck7489u7pqc068eeuqsnq is not listed on IDEAS
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6o4qdck7489u7pqc068eeuqsnq is not listed on IDEAS
    9. 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.
    10. Gerberding, Christina, 2001. "The information content of survey data on expected price developments for monetary policy," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2001,09, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    11. Camille Cornand & Paul Hubert, 2020. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-02894262, HAL.
    12. El-Shagi, Makram, 2011. "Inflation expectations: Does the market beat econometric forecasts?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 298-319.
    13. Camille Cornand & Paul Hubert, 2018. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts: A comparison with five categories of field expectations," Working Papers halshs-01890770, HAL.
    14. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    15. 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.
    16. Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Michael F. Bryan & Simon M. Potter & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 2008. "Rethinking the measurement of household inflation expectations: preliminary findings," Staff Reports 359, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    17. Campbell, Carl M., 2014. "The formation of wage expectations in the effort and quit decisions of workers," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 313-322.
    18. Pooja Kapoor & Sujata Kar, 2023. "A review of inflation expectations and perceptions research in the past four decades: a bibliometric analysis," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 279-302, May.
    19. Reid, Monique, 2015. "Inflation expectations of the inattentive general public," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 157-166.
    20. Beqiraj, Elton & Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Di Pietro, Marco, 2019. "Beliefs formation and the puzzle of forward guidance power," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 20-32.
    21. Czudaj, Robert L., 2022. "Heterogeneity of beliefs and information rigidity in the crude oil market: Evidence from survey data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    22. David Elkayam & Alex Ilek, 2009. "The information content of inflationary expectations derived from bond prices in Israel," Advances in Econometrics, in: Measurement Error: Consequences, Applications and Solutions, pages 61-89, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation Expectations; Consumer Expenditure Survey; Michigan Survey of Consumers; Survey of Professional Forecasters; Euler Equation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • 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:zbw:bubdp1:4755. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dbbgvde.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.