Uncovering Subjective Models from Survey Expectations

Households may perceive that macroeconomic variables move together in a different way from that implied by their actual realizations and sophisticated models. We use a structural test derived from a multivariate noisy-information framework and additional evidence from survey data and newspaper narratives to show that information friction alone cannot explain households’ tendency to associate higher future inflation with a worse labor market outlook. We also show that the subjective model empirically uncovered from survey data implies amplified output responses to supply shocks, but dampened output and price responses to demand shocks.