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Beyond Groceries: Financial Confidence and the Gender Gap in Inflation Expectations

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  • Lovisa Reiche

Abstract

The gender gap in inflation expectations, women reporting systematically higher expectations in consumer surveys, has been attributed to traditional gender norms, and thus women’s greater exposure to volatile food prices. This overlooks a crucial factor: financial answer confidence. Using data from German households, I show that the “grocery shopping” effect occurs only among those with low answer confidence, while there is no gap among those with high answer confidence. The interaction of financial answer confidence and the shopping experience can be explained through the lens of a simple Bayesian learning framework, where noisy signals only increase mean expectations when priors are imprecise.

Suggested Citation

  • Lovisa Reiche, 2024. "Beyond Groceries: Financial Confidence and the Gender Gap in Inflation Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 11588, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11588
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lamla, Michael J. & Vinogradov, Dmitri V., 2019. "Central bank announcements: Big news for little people?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 21-38.
    2. Jacobsen, Ben & Lee, John B. & Marquering, Wessel & Zhang, Cherry Y., 2014. "Gender differences in optimism and asset allocation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 630-651.
    3. Pfajfar, Damjan & Santoro, Emiliano, 2010. "Heterogeneity, learning and information stickiness in inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 426-444, September.
    4. Christina Leung, 2009. "The demographics of household inflation perceptions and expectations," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 72, pages 34-42, June.
    5. Michael Weber & Francesco D'Acunto & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2022. "The Subjective Inflation Expectations of Households and Firms: Measurement, Determinants, and Implications," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 157-184, Summer.
    6. Abildgren, Kim & Kuchler, Andreas, 2021. "Revisiting the inflation perception conundrum," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
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    Cited by:

    1. Leo Van Hove & Ronny Verbraecken, 2025. "Gender roles and inflation expectations: D’Acunto et al. revisited," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 797-818, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    consumer inflation expectations; gender; financial literacy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy
    • G53 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Financial Literacy

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