IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfr/banfra/770.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Matters in Households’ Inflation Expectations?Author-Name: Philippe Andrade

Author

Listed:
  • Erwan Gautier
  • Eric Mengus

Abstract

We provide evidence that households discretize their inflation expectations so that what matters for durable consumption decisions is the broad inflation regime they expect. Using survey data, we document that a large share of the adjustment in the average inflation expectation comes from the change in the share of households expecting stable prices; these households also consume relatively less than the ones expecting positive inflation. In contrast, variations of expectations across households expecting a positive inflation rate are associated with much smaller differences in individual durable consumption choices. We illustrate how this mitigates the expectation channel of monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Erwan Gautier & Eric Mengus, 2020. "What Matters in Households’ Inflation Expectations?Author-Name: Philippe Andrade," Working papers 770, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:770
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/default/files/medias/documents/wp770.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibiki Ichiue & Shusaku Nishiguchi, 2015. "Inflation Expectations And Consumer Spending At The Zero Bound: Micro Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 1086-1107, April.
    2. Peter J. Klenow & Oleksiy Kryvtsov, 2008. "State-Dependent or Time-Dependent Pricing: Does it Matter for Recent U.S. Inflation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 123(3), pages 863-904.
    3. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2018. "Forward Guidance without Common Knowledge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2477-2512, September.
    4. Marco Del Negro & Marc Giannoni & Christina Patterson, 2012. "The forward guidance puzzle," Staff Reports 574, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    5. Mariana García-Schmidt & Michael Woodford, 2019. "Are Low Interest Rates Deflationary? A Paradox of Perfect-Foresight Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 86-120, January.
    6. Khaw, Mel Win & Stevens, Luminita & Woodford, Michael, 2017. "Discrete adjustment to a changing environment: Experimental evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 88-103.
    7. 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.
    8. Mary A. Burke & Ali Ozdagli, 2013. "Household inflation expectations and consumer spending: evidence from panel data," Working Papers 13-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    9. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Saten Kumar, 2018. "How Do Firms Form Their Expectations? New Survey Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2671-2713, September.
    10. Greg Kaplan & Benjamin Moll & Giovanni L. Violante, 2018. "Monetary Policy According to HANK," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(3), pages 697-743, March.
    11. 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.
    12. Francesco D’Acunto & Ulrike Malmendier & Juan Ospina & Michael Weber, 2019. "Exposure to Daily Price Changes and Inflation Expectations," NBER Working Papers 26237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Andrade, Philippe & Le Bihan, Hervé, 2013. "Inattentive professional forecasters," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 967-982.
    14. 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.
    15. 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, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    16. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kumar, Saten & Pedemonte, Mathieu, 2020. "Inflation expectations as a policy tool?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Tambalotti, Andrea & Topa, Giorgio, 2022. "Subjective intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 118-133.
    18. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2016. "Learning from Inflation Experiences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(1), pages 53-87.
    19. Philippe Andrade & Gaetano Gaballo & Eric Mengus & Benoît Mojon, 2019. "Forward Guidance and Heterogeneous Beliefs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 1-29, July.
    20. Fernando Alvarez & Luigi Guiso & Francesco Lippi, 2012. "Durable Consumption and Asset Management with Transaction and Observation Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2272-2300, August.
    21. Lena Dräger & Giang Nghiem, 2021. "Are Consumers' Spending Decisions in Line with A Euler Equation?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(3), pages 580-596, July.
    22. Bartosz Mackowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2019. "Optimal Sticky Prices Under Rational Inattention," Credit and Capital Markets, Credit and Capital Markets, vol. 52(4), pages 573-617.
    23. Filip Matêjka & Alisdair McKay, 2015. "Rational Inattention to Discrete Choices: A New Foundation for the Multinomial Logit Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 272-298, January.
    24. David Berger & Joseph Vavra, 2015. "Consumption Dynamics During Recessions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 101-154, January.
    25. Alisdair McKay & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2016. "The Power of Forward Guidance Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 3133-3158, October.
    26. Emmanuel Farhi & Iván Werning, 2019. "Monetary Policy, Bounded Rationality, and Incomplete Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3887-3928, November.
    27. Rüdiger Bachmann & Tim O. Berg & Eric R. Sims, 2015. "Inflation Expectations and Readiness to Spend: Cross-Sectional Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 1-35, February.
    28. 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.
    29. Francesco D’Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Michael Weber, 2017. "The Effect of Unconventional Fiscal Policy on Consumption Expenditure," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(01), pages 09-11, April.
    30. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2022. "Monetary Policy Communications and Their Effects on Household Inflation Expectations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(6), pages 1537-1584.
    31. Xavier Gabaix, 2020. "A Behavioral New Keynesian Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2271-2327, August.
    32. Junehyuk Jung & Jeong Ho (John) Kim & Filip Matějka & Christopher A Sims, 2019. "Discrete Actions in Information-Constrained Decision Problems," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 86(6), pages 2643-2667.
    33. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    34. Luminita Stevens, 2020. "Coarse Pricing Policies," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 420-453.
    35. 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 2015 - 038, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    36. 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.
    37. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2018. "Intrinsic expectations persistence: evidence from professional and household survey expectations," Working Papers 18-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    38. Alisdair McKay & Johannes F. Wieland, 2019. "Lumpy Durable Consumption Demand and the Limited Ammunition of Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 26175, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    40. Mackowiak, Bartosz Adam & Matejka, Filip & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2018. "Survey: Rational Inattention, a Disciplined Behavioral Model," CEPR Discussion Papers 13243, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    41. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2003. "The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 139-235.
    42. Alisdair McKay & Johannes Wieland, 2019. "Lumpy Durable Consumption Demand and the State-Dependent Effects of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," 2019 Meeting Papers 364, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    43. Vellekoop, Nathanael & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2019. "Inflation expectations and choices of households," SAFE Working Paper Series 250, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    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. Gabriele Galati & Richhild Moessner & Maarten van Rooij, 2022. "Reactions of household inflation expectations to a symmetric inflation target and high inflation (August 2022 update)," Working Papers 743, DNB.
    2. Michael Weber & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2023. "The Expected, Perceived, and Realized Inflation of US Households Before and During the COVID19 Pandemic," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 326-368, March.
    3. Stanisławska, Ewa & Paloviita, Maritta, 2021. "Medium- vs. short-term consumer inflation expectations: Evidence from a new euro area survey," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 10/2021, Bank of Finland.
    4. Assenmacher, Katrin & Glöckler, Gabriel & Holton, Sarah & Trautmann, Peter & Ioannou, Demosthenes & Mee, Simon & Alonso, Conception & Argiri, Eleni & Arigoni, Filippo & Bakk-Simon, Klára & Bergbauer, , 2021. "Clear, consistent and engaging: ECB monetary policy communication in a changing world," Occasional Paper Series 274, European Central Bank.
    5. Gunda‐Alexandra Detmers & Sui‐Jade Ho & Özer Karagedikli, 2022. "Understanding Consumer Inflation Expectations during the COVID‐19 Pandemic," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 55(1), pages 141-154, March.
    6. Philippe Andrade & Jordi Gali & Hervé Le Bihan & Julien Matheron, 2021. "Should the ECB Adjust Its Strategy in the Face of a Lower r*?," Working Papers 22-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    7. Baumann, Ursel & Darracq Pariès, Matthieu & Westermann, Thomas & Riggi, Marianna & Bobeica, Elena & Meyler, Aidan & Böninghausen, Benjamin & Fritzer, Friedrich & Trezzi, Riccardo & Jonckheere, Jana & , 2021. "Inflation expectations and their role in Eurosystem forecasting," Occasional Paper Series 264, European Central Bank.
    8. Coleman, Winnie & Nautz, Dieter, 2021. "Inflation expectations, inflation target credibility and the COVID-19 pandemic: New evidence from Germany," CFS Working Paper Series 658, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    9. Gabriele Galati & Richhild Moessner & Maarten van Rooij, 2020. "The anchoring of long-term inflation expectations of consumers: insights from a new survey," Working Papers 688, DNB.
    10. Bańnkowska, Katarzyna & Borlescu, Ana Maria & Charalambakis, Evangelos & Da Silva, António Dias & Di Laurea, Davide & Dossche, Maarten & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Honkkila, Juha & Kennedy, Neale & Kenny, 2021. "ECB Consumer Expectations Survey: an overview and first evaluation," Occasional Paper Series 287, European Central Bank.

    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. Andrade, Philippe & Gautier, Erwan & Mengus, Eric, 2020. "What Matters in Households' Inflation Expectations?," CEPR Discussion Papers 14905, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Francesco D'Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Maritta Paloviita & Michael Weber, 2019. "Human Frictions to the Transmission of Economic Policy," 2019 Meeting Papers 339, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Mackowiak, Bartosz Adam & Matejka, Filip & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2020. "Rational Inattention: A Review," CEPR Discussion Papers 15408, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2022. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Post-Print hal-03878692, HAL.
    5. Philippe Andrade & Gaetano Gaballo & Eric Mengus & Benoît Mojon, 2019. "Forward Guidance and Heterogeneous Beliefs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 1-29, July.
    6. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2022. "Rational Inattention: A Review," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03878692, HAL.
    7. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Tambalotti, Andrea & Topa, Giorgio, 2022. "Subjective intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 118-133.
    8. Francesco D’Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Michael Weber, 2022. "Managing Households’ Expectations with Unconventional Policies [The age of reason: Financial decisions over the life cycle and implications for regulation]," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 1597-1642.
    9. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kumar, Saten & Pedemonte, Mathieu, 2020. "Inflation expectations as a policy tool?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    10. Coibion, Olivier & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & van Rooij, Maarten, 2019. "How Does Consumption Respond to News About Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4nc5400j, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    11. Adrien Auclert & Ludwig Straub & Matthew Rognlie, 2019. "Micro Jumps, Macro Humps: monetary policy and business cycles in an estimated HANK model," 2019 Meeting Papers 1449, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Coibion, Olivier & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & van Rooij, Maarten, 2019. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3zh865pj, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    14. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2018. "Forward Guidance without Common Knowledge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2477-2512, September.
    15. Sebastian Link & Andreas Peichl & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Information Frictions among Firms and Households," CEBI working paper series 21-07, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    16. Peter Andre & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2019. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence from Experts and Representative Samples," CESifo Working Paper Series 7850, CESifo.
    17. Bernardo Candia & Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2020. "Communication and the Beliefs of Economic Agents," NBER Working Papers 27800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Tiziano Ropele, 2020. "Inflation Expectations and Firm Decisions: New Causal Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 135(1), pages 165-219.
    19. Campbell, Jeffrey R. & Ferroni, Filippo & Fisher, Jonas D.M. & Melosi, Leonardo, 2019. "The limits of forward guidance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 118-134.
    20. Duca, Ioana A. & Kenny, Geoff & Reuter, Andreas, 2018. "Inflation expectations, consumption and the lower bound: micro evidence from a large euro area survey," Working Paper Series 2196, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inflation Expectations; Euler Equation; Survey Data; Imperfect Information; Adjustment Costs; Stabilization policies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:bfr:banfra:770. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.html .

    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: Michael brassart (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.