What Changes Deflationary Expectations? Evidence from Japanese Household-level Data

The Japanese economy has suffered from deflation since the mid-1990s. Despite the importance of overcoming deflation for policymakers and academics in Japan, there has been no recent research on what changes deflationary expectations in Japan. This study emphasizes fact-finding from a unique and rich quarterly household-level data set to estimate average price expectations, to examine what changes price expectations, and to look at how changes in price expectations affect household consumption. Our empirical estimates indicate that price expectations ranges from minus 0.5 percent to zero percent for the period from 2001 to2003 in Japan, with the exception of a big hike in the first quarter of 2003. Price expectations are dependent on current price movements and lagged expectations. Awareness of monetary policy announcements does not largely change price expectations in Japan, since a series of quantitative easing caused revision of price expectations only for small portion, i.e., 5-10% of people surveyed. The jump in the first quarter of 2003 was caused by the Iraq war. We also confirm that deflationary expectations discourage household consumption, mainly durables, through postponing the timing of purchases. Our findings suggest that the deflationary expectations should be upwardly revised to stimulate Japanese household consumption. However, a series of quantitative easing were not very much effective to alter the expectations of all households; rather, only the Iraq war was an influential impact to change price expectations. Note that the degree of revision for those who revised expectations was similar order among those events examined in this study, but that the share of households affected is very much different. Keeping this in mind, the monetary authorities should implement quantitative easing in more aggressive and understandable ways to change deflationary expectations.