IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hit/rcesrs/dp16-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Mechanism of Inflation Expectation Formation among Consumers

Author

Listed:
  • Abe, Naohito
  • Ueno, Yuko

Abstract

How do we determine our expectations of inflation? Because inflation expectations greatly influence the economy, researchers have long considered this question. Using a survey with randomized experiments among 15,000 consumers, we investigate the mechanism of inflation expectation formation. Learning theory predicts that once people obtain new information on future inflation, they change their expectations. In this regard, such expectations are the weighted average of prior belief and information. We confirm that the weight for prior belief is a decreasing function of the degree of uncertainty. Our results also show that monetary authority information affects consumers to a greater extent when expectations are updated. With such information, consumers change their inflation expectations by 37% from the average. This finding supports improvements to monetary policy publicity.

Suggested Citation

  • Abe, Naohito & Ueno, Yuko, 2016. "The Mechanism of Inflation Expectation Formation among Consumers," RCESR Discussion Paper Series DP16-1, Research Center for Economic and Social Risks, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    • Handle: RePEc:hit:rcesrs:dp16-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/27769/dp16-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Armantier & Scott Nelson & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2016. "The Price Is Right: Updating Inflation Expectations in a Randomized Price Information Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(3), pages 503-523, July.
    2. 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.
    3. Bennett T. McCallum, 1984. "Credibility and monetary policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 105-135.
    4. Engelberg, Joseph & Manski, Charles F. & Williams, Jared, 2009. "Comparing the Point Predictions and Subjective Probability Distributions of Professional Forecasters," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27, pages 30-41.
    5. 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.
    6. Bartosz Mackowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2009. "Optimal Sticky Prices under Rational Inattention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 769-803, June.
    7. 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.
    8. Hoover, Kevin D. & Young, Warren, 2013. "Rational Expectations: Retrospect And Prospect," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(5), pages 1169-1192, July.
    9. Alan S. Blinder, 2000. "Central-Bank Credibility: Why Do We Care? How Do We Build It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1421-1431, December.
    10. Eugene Kandel & Ben-Zion Zilberfarb, 1999. "Differential Interpretation Of Information In Inflation Forecasts," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 217-226, May.
    11. Thomas J. Sargent, 1982. "The Ends of Four Big Inflations," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation: Causes and Effects, pages 41-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    13. Alberto Cavallo & Guillermo Cruces & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2014. "Inflation Expectations, Learning and Supermarket Prices," NBER Working Papers 20576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. William A. Branch, 2004. "The Theory of Rationally Heterogeneous Expectations: Evidence from Survey Data on Inflation Expectations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 592-621, July.
    15. Wändi Bruine De Bruin & Charles F. Manski & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2011. "Measuring consumer uncertainty about future inflation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 454-478, April.
    16. Charles F. Manski, 2004. "Measuring Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1329-1376, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    19. Manski, Charles F. & Molinari, Francesca, 2010. "Rounding Probabilistic Expectations in Surveys," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 28(2), pages 219-231.
    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. Hattori, Masazumi & Yetman, James, 2017. "The evolution of inflation expectations in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 53-68.
    2. Reiche, Lovisa & Meyler, Aidan, 2022. "Making sense of consumer inflation expectations: the role of uncertainty," Working Paper Series 2642, European Central Bank.
    3. Rodolfo Arioli & Colm Bates & Heinz Dieden & Ioana Duca & Roberta Friz & Christian Gayer & Geoff Kenny & Aidan Meyler & Iskra Pavlova, 2016. "EU Consumers’ Quantitative Inflation Perceptions and Expectations: An Evaluation," European Economy - Discussion Papers 038, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.

    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. Naohito Abe & Yuko Ueno, 2016. "The Mechanism of Inflation Expectation Formation among Consumers," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 064, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    2. Abe, Naohito & Ueno, Yuko, 2015. "Measuring Inflation Expectations: Consumers' Heterogeneity and Nonlinearity," RCESR Discussion Paper Series DP15-5, Research Center for Economic and Social Risks, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    3. 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.
    4. Andrade, Philippe & Gautier, Erwan & Mengus, Eric, 2023. "What matters in households’ inflation expectations?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 50-68.
    5. Camille Cornand & Paul Hubert, 2021. "Information frictions in inflation expectations among five types of economic agents," Working Papers halshs-03351632, HAL.
    6. 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.
    7. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2022. "Information frictions across various types of inflation expectations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    8. Dovern, Jonas & Müller, Lena Sophia & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2023. "Local information and firm expectations about aggregates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 1-13.
    9. Stefano Eusepi & Richard Crump & Emanuel Moench & Philippe Andrade, 2014. "Noisy Information and Fundamental Disagreement," 2014 Meeting Papers 797, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Andrade, Philippe & Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Moench, Emanuel, 2016. "Fundamental disagreement," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 106-128.
    11. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    12. Manzan, Sebastiano, 2021. "Are professional forecasters Bayesian?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Jérémy Boccanfuso, 2022. "Consumption Response Heterogeneity and Dynamics with an Inattention Region," Working Papers wp1172, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    14. Camille Cornand & Paul Hubert, 2021. "Information frictions in inflation expectations among five types of economic agents," Working Papers hal-03468918, HAL.
    15. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Tambalotti, Andrea & Topa, Giorgio, 2022. "Subjective intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 118-133.
    16. Paul Hubert, 2014. "FOMC Forecasts as a Focal Point for Private Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(7), pages 1381-1420, October.
    17. 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.
    18. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    19. 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).
    20. Cole, Stephen J. & Milani, Fabio, 2021. "Heterogeneity in individual expectations, sentiment, and constant-gain learning," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 627-650.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inflation expectations; Bayesian updating; rational expectation; randomized survey experiments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    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:hit:rcesrs:dp16-1. 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: Digital Resources Section, Hitotsubashi University Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eshitjp.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.