IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedcec/102394.html

How Anchored Are Short-Run Inflation Expectations Today? A Look at What Consumers and Forecasters Are Telling Us

Author

Abstract

Policymakers emphasize the importance of “well-anchored” inflation expectations to ensure that price- and wage-setting behavior does not become entrenched in a high-inflation cycle, helping central banks to maintain price stability and achieve their inflation objectives. Motivated by concerns about trade tensions in the aftermath of high pandemic-era inflation, we examine the anchoring of consumers’ and professional forecasters’ one-year-ahead inflation expectations for evidence of recent weakening. While the inflation expectations of professional forecasters remain well-anchored, there has been a notable deterioration in consumers’ inflation expectations’ anchoring in 2025 comparable to that in the late 1970s.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Cline & Robert W. Rich, 2026. "How Anchored Are Short-Run Inflation Expectations Today? A Look at What Consumers and Forecasters Are Telling Us," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2026(01), pages 1-14, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:102394
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-ec-202601
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-ec-202601
    File Function: Persistent link with full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/economic-commentary/2026/ec-202601-how-anchored-are-short-run-inflation-expectations-today/ec-202601-cline-and-rich.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26509/frbc-ec-202601?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Armantier, Olivier & Sbordone, Argia & Topa, Giorgio & van der Klaauw, Wilbert & Williams, John C., 2022. "A new approach to assess inflation expectations anchoring using strategic surveys," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(S), pages 82-101.
    2. Laurence Ball & Sandeep Mazumder, 2019. "A Phillips Curve with Anchored Expectations and Short‐Term Unemployment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(1), pages 111-137, February.
    3. Saten Kumar & Hassan Afrouzi & Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Inflation Targeting Does Not Anchor Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Firms in New Zealand," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(2 (Fall)), pages 151-225.
    4. Ina Hajdini, 2023. "Trend Inflation and Implications for the Phillips Curve," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2023(07), pages 1-6, April.
    5. Bems, Rudolfs & Caselli, Francesca & Grigoli, Francesco & Gruss, Bertrand, 2021. "Expectations' anchoring and inflation persistence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. Frédérique Savignac & Erwan Gautier & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2024. "Firms’ Inflation Expectations: New Evidence from France," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(6), pages 2748-2781.
    7. Carola Binder & Wesley Janson & Randal Verbrugge, 2023. "Out of Bounds: Do SPF Respondents Have Anchored Inflation Expectations?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(2-3), pages 559-576, March.
    8. Todd E. Clark & Matthew V. Gordon, 2023. "The Impacts of Supply Chain Disruptions on Inflation," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2023(08), pages 1-8, May.
    9. Kristoph Naggert & Robert W. Rich & Joseph Tracy, 2023. "The Anchoring of US Inflation Expectations Since 2012," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2023(11), pages 1-7, July.
    10. Ina Hajdini & Edward S. Knotek & John Leer & Mathieu Pedemonte & Damjan Pfajfar & Raphael Schoenle & Taylor Shiroff, 2025. "Consumer Inflation Expectations Across Surveys and over Time," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2025(07), pages 1-10, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Beckmann, Joscha & Czudaj, Robert L., 2026. "Uncertainty shocks and inflation: The role of credibility and expectation anchoring," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Czudaj, Robert L., 2023. "Anchoring of Inflation Expectations and the Role of Monetary Policy and Cost-Push Factors," MPRA Paper 119029, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jørgensen, Peter Lihn & Lansing, Kevin J., 2025. "A simple measure of anchoring for short-run expected inflation in FIRE models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    4. Kalpana, R. & Dash, Pradyumna, 2025. "Households’ inflation perceptions, expectations, and the monetary policy in India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    5. Jørgensen, Peter Lihn & Lansing, Kevin J., 2025. "Anchored inflation expectations and the slope of the Phillips curve," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    6. Bonomo, Marco & Carvalho, Carlos & Eusepi, Stefano & Perrupato, Marina & Abib, Daniel & Ayres, João & Matos, Silvia, 2024. "Abrupt monetary policy change and unanchoring of inflation expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(S).
    7. Christina Anderl & Guglielmo Maria Caporale, 2025. "Gasoline Price Expectations as a Transmission Channel for Gasoline Price Shocks," CESifo Working Paper Series 11924, CESifo.
    8. Czudaj, Robert L., 2025. "Expectation formation and the Phillips curve revisited," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29, pages 1-1, January.
    9. Nickel, Christiane & Kilponen, Juha & Moral-Benito, Enrique & Koester, Gerrit & Ciccarelli, Matteo & Enders, Almira & Holton, Sarah & Landau, Bettina & Venditti, Fabrizio & Bobeica, Elena & Brand, Cla, 2025. "A strategic view on the economic and inflation environment in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 371, European Central Bank.
    10. Mazumder, Sandeep, 2021. "The reaction of inflation forecasts to news about the Fed," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 256-264.
    11. Acharya, Viral & Crosignani, Matteo & Eisert, Tim & Eufinger, Christian, 2023. "How do supply shocks to inflation generalize? Evidence from the pandemic era in Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 18530, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2024. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public: Promise or False Hope?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 425-457, June.
    13. Okan Akarsu & Huzeyfe Torun, 2025. "Firms’ Inflation Expectations During the Phases of Inflation," CBT Research Notes in Economics 2519, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
    14. Binz, Oliver & Ferracuti, Elia & Joos, Peter, 2023. "Investment, inflation, and the role of internal information systems as a transmission channel," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2).
    15. Baumann, Ursel & Ferrando, Annalisa & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Reinelt, Timo, 2024. "SAFE to Update Inflation Expectations? New Survey Evidence on Euro Area Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 17015, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Stanisławska, Ewa & Paloviita, Maritta, 2021. "Responsiveness of consumers' medium-term inflation expectations : evidence from a new euro area survey," Research Discussion Papers 10/2021, Bank of Finland.
    17. A. Moutaabbid, 2024. "Les determinants de la dynamique des salaires en France : approches macro et sectorielles par la courbe de Phillips," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers 2024-20, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    18. Volz, Ute & Wicknig, Florian, 2025. "Anchoring of survey-based inflation expectations: Risk assessment relative to the inflation target," Technical Papers 02/2025, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    19. Miguel Saldarriaga & Pablo del Aguila & Kevin Gershy-Damet, 2017. "Has inflation targeting anchored inflation expectations? Evidence from Peru," Working Papers 103, Peruvian Economic Association.
    20. Jonas Dovern & Alexander Glas & Geoff Kenny, 2024. "Testing for differences in survey‐based density expectations: A compositional data approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(6), pages 1104-1122, September.

    More about this item

    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:fip:fedcec:102394. 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: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.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.