IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedker/95029.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Higher Gasoline Prices Set Off an Inflationary Spiral?

Author

Abstract

In early 2022, with consumer price inflation already high, a spike in the price of gasoline increased public concerns that the U.S. economy could be in for a repeat of the inflationary spiral that gripped the nation in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, energy price increases created an environment where rising inflation and rising inflation expectations reinforced one another until a deep economic contraction broke the feedback loop. Nida Çakır Melek, Francis M. Dillon, and A. Lee Smith assess the risk of a similar spiral in the current environment by exploring whether high inflation makes consumers’ inflation expectations more responsive to salient price increases—namely, higher gasoline prices. They find that in response to an increase in the national price of gasoline, individuals with higher initial inflation expectations revise up their one-year-ahead inflation forecasts by almost twice as much as those with lower initial inflation expectations. With inflation currently high and consumers’ inflation expectations elevated, their results suggest that changes in salient prices could indeed have an amplified effect on inflation expectations.

Suggested Citation

  • Nida Çakır Melek & Francis Dillon & Andrew Lee Smith, 2022. "Can Higher Gasoline Prices Set Off an Inflationary Spiral?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 107(no.4), November.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedker:95029
    DOI: 10.18651/ER/v107n4CakirMelekDillonSmith
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.kansascityfed.org/Economic%20Review/documents/9243/EconomicReviewV107N4CakirMelekDillonSmith.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18651/ER/v107n4CakirMelekDillonSmith?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. Brachinger, Hans Wolfgang, 2008. "A new index of perceived inflation: Assumptions, method, and application to Germany," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 433-457, August.
    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. Nida Çakır Melek & Francis Dillon & Andrew Lee Smith, 2023. "Gasoline Prices Unlikely to Bring Down Inflation in 2023," Economic Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue February , pages 1-4, February.

    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. Kai Biehl & Judith Derndorfer & Franziska Disslbacher & Michael Ertl & Georg Feigl & Julia Hofmann & Markus Marterbauer & Patrick Mokre & Reinhold Russinger & Matthias Schnetzer & Jana Schultheiss & T, 2021. "Konsumerhebung und Verbraucherpreisindex – Herausforderungen für die amtliche Statistik in Pandemiezeiten," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 47(4), pages 457-468.
    2. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2021_010 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Thomas A. Stephens & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2012. "“At least I didn’t lose money” - Nominal Loss Aversion Shapes Evaluations of Housing Transactions," Discussion Papers 12-14, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    4. Lena Dräger & Ulrich Fritsche, 2013. "Don't Worry, Be Right! Survey Wording Effects on In flation Perceptions and Expectations," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 201308, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    5. Bruine de Bruin, Wändi & van der Klaauw, Wilbert & Topa, Giorgio, 2011. "Expectations of inflation: The biasing effect of thoughts about specific prices," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 834-845.
    6. Pooja Kapoor & Sujata Kar, 2022. "A Critical Evaluation of the Consumer Confidence Survey from India," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 7, pages 172-198.
    7. Hayo, Bernd & Méon, Pierre-Guillaume, 2023. "Measuring Household Inflation Perceptions and Expectations: The Effect of Guided vs Non-Guided Inflation Questions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Michael Ehrmann, 2011. "Inflation Developments and Perceptions after the Euro Cash Changeover," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(1), pages 33-58, February.
    9. Jarko Fidrmuc & Caroline Klein & Robert Price & Andreas Wörgötter, 2013. "Slovakia: A Catching Up Euro Area Member In and Out of the Crisis," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1019, OECD Publishing.
    10. Abildgren, Kim & Kuchler, Andreas, 2021. "Revisiting the inflation perception conundrum," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Agüero-Morera, Diego & Bien-Briceño, Andrés & Villalobos-Delgado, Mauricio, 2016. "Ability of a perceived inflation measure to predict the consumer confidence index, 12-month inflation expectations and the inflation in Costa Rica, 2006-2012," Revista de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Económicas, Universidad de Costa Rica, vol. 34(2), December.
    12. Ewa Stanisławska, 2019. "Consumers’ Perception of Inflation in Inflationary and Deflationary Environment," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 15(1), pages 41-71, April.
    13. Alberto Prati, 2024. "The Well‐Being Cost of Inflation Inequalities," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 70(1), pages 213-238, March.
    14. Christandl, Fabian & Fetchenhauer, Detlef & Hoelzl, Erik, 2011. "Price perception and confirmation bias in the context of a VAT increase," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 131-141, February.
    15. Pooja Kapoor & Sujata Kar, 2023. "A review of inflation expectations and perceptions research in the past four decades: a bibliometric analysis," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 279-302, May.
    16. Petar Soric, 2024. "The euro and inflation in Croatia: much ado about nothing?," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 48(1), pages 1-37.
    17. Bovi, Maurizio, 2009. "Economic versus psychological forecasting. Evidence from consumer confidence surveys," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 563-574, August.
    18. Nida Çakır Melek & Francis Dillon & Andrew Lee Smith, 2023. "Gasoline Prices Unlikely to Bring Down Inflation in 2023," Economic Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue February , pages 1-4, February.
    19. Olivier Armantier & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Julie S. Downs & Baruch Fischhoff & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 2010. "The effect of question wording on reported expectations and perceptions of inflation," Staff Reports 443, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    20. Reiche, Lovisa & Meyler, Aidan, 2022. "Making sense of consumer inflation expectations: the role of uncertainty," Working Paper Series 2642, European Central Bank.
    21. Nam, Minho & Go, Minji, 2018. "Nexus between Inflation, Inflation Perceptions and Expectations," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 40(3), pages 45-68.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

    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:fedker:95029. 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: Kira Lillard (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbkcus.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.