When Wording Changes What We Find: The Impact of Inflation Expectations on Spending

We use an experimental module in the Bundesbank Online Panel Households to show that the estimated link between inflation expectations and household consumption changes significantly depending on survey wording. This finding reconciles prior contradictory results and has direct implications for central bank survey design. Our experiment systematically varies elicitation framing of consumption questions along three dimensions: the reference unit (individual vs. household), the time horizon (past one, 3, or 12 months), and the question type (attitudinal, planned, qualitative and quantitative recall-based). We find that mainly question type significantly influences the estimated relationship between inflation expectations and durable consumption. While the average association is weak, its sign and magnitude vary strongly with question design. Planned spending and attitudinal questions, such as whether it is a good time to buy, produce very similar negative associations, suggesting that respondents interpret the former as a proxy for future intentions. In contrast, quantitative recall-based questions on past spending yield a modestly positive or insignificant link. These results highlight the critical role of survey design in shaping behavioral measurements, offering a novel explanation for mixed findings in the literature and guidance for both research and policy.