Analyzing 50 years of inflation expectations data from several sources, we document substantial disagreement among both consumers and professional economists about expected future inflation. Moreover, this disagreement shows substantial variation through time, moving with inflation, the absolute value of the change in inflation, and relative price variability. We argue that a satisfactory model of economic dynamics must speak to these important business cycle moments. Noting that most macroeconomic models do not endogenously generate disagreement, we show that a simple "sticky-information" model broadly matches many of these facts. Moreover, the sticky-information model is consistent with other observed departures of inflation expectations from full rationality, including autocorrelated forecast errors and insufficient sensitivity to recent macroeconomic news.
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Paper provided by Stanford University, Graduate School of Business in its series Research Papers with number
1807.
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.
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1994.
"Measuring Core Inflation,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Monetary Policy, pages 195-219
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1993.
"Measuring Core Inflation,"
NBER Working Papers
4303, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Brenner, Menachem & Landskroner, Yoram, 1983.
"Inflation Uncertainties and Returns on Bonds,"
Economica,
London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(200), pages 463-68, November.
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