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Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? Household Expectations of Inflation Based on Micro Consumption Data

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Author Info
ATSUSHI INOUE
LUTZ KILIAN
FATMA BURCU KIRAZ

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Abstract

Survey data on household expectations of inflation are routinely used in economic analysis, yet it is not clear how accurately households are able to articulate their expectations in survey interviews. We propose an alternative approach to recovering households' expectations of inflation from their consumption expenditures. We show that these expectations measures have predictive power for consumer price index (CPI) inflation. They are better predictors of CPI inflation than household survey responses and more highly correlated with professional inflation forecasts, except for highly educated consumers, consistent with the view that more educated consumers are better able to articulate their expectations. We also document that households' inflation expectations respond to inflation news, as measured by the unpredictable component of inflation predictions in the Survey of Professional Forecasters. The response to inflation news tends to increase with households' level of education, consistent with the existence of constraints on household's ability to process this information. Copyright (c) 2009 The Ohio State University.

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File URL: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00259.x
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Article provided by Blackwell Publishing in its journal Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

Volume (Year): 41 (2009)
Issue (Month): 7 (October)
Pages: 1331-1363
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Handle: RePEc:mcb:jmoncb:v:41:y:2009:i:7:p:1331-1363

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Fabio Canova & Luca Gambetti, 2007. "Do expectations matter? The Great Moderation revisited," Economics Working Papers 1084, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2009. [Downloadable!]
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