IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_12784.html

Households’ Macroeconomic Beliefs: The Role of Education

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica Piccolo
  • Alessia Russo
  • Eleonora Granziera
  • Efrem Castelnuovo

Abstract

We design a novel survey to study how education shapes households' joint beliefs about inflation, unemployment, and monetary policy transmission. College-educated respondents perceive the inflation-unemployment trade-off and hold views similar to professional forecasters, while less educated respondents favor supply-side narratives. When exposed to hypothetical monetary policy interventions, the more educated update expectations and adjust consumption and saving in line with standard models, whereas the less educated display greater rigidity. This education gradient persists after controlling for information sources, financial literacy, and institutional trust, pointing to differences in abstract reasoning. Open-ended responses are consistent with college-educated households holding mental models aligned with standard macroeconomic theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Piccolo & Alessia Russo & Eleonora Granziera & Efrem Castelnuovo, 2026. "Households’ Macroeconomic Beliefs: The Role of Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 12784, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12784
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12784.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moll, Ben, 2026. "The trouble with rational expectations in heterogeneous agent models: a challenge for macroeconomics," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 130139, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Florin O Bilbiie, 2025. "Monetary Policy and Heterogeneity: An Analytical Framework," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(4), pages 2398-2436.
    3. 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.
    4. Janet Hua Jiang & Rupal Kamdar & Kelin Lu & Daniela Puzzello, 2024. "How Do Households Respond to Expected Inflation? An Investigation of Transmission Mechanisms," Staff Working Papers 24-44, Bank of Canada.
    5. Qifa Xu & Zezhou Wang & Cuixia Jiang & Yezheng Liu, 2023. "Deep learning on mixed frequency data," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2099-2120, December.
    6. Wayne Xinwei Wan & Thies Lindenthal, 2023. "Testing machine learning systems in real estate," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(3), pages 754-778, May.
    7. Francesco D'Acunto & Michael Weber, 2024. "Why Survey-Based Subjective Expectations Are Meaningful and Important," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 16(1), pages 329-357, August.
    8. Binetti, Alberto & Nuzzi, Francesco & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2024. "People’s Understanding of Inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 19178, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    9. Huihui Wang & Inuk Hwang & Patricio V. Marquez, 2023. "Learning from the Republic of Korea," World Bank Publications - Reports 40203, The World Bank Group.
    10. Masolo, Riccardo M. & Monti, Francesca, 2024. "Inflation Expectations of Savers and Borrowers," CEPR Discussion Papers 19776, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    11. Ball, Laurence & Gregory Mankiw, N. & Reis, Ricardo, 2005. "Monetary policy for inattentive economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 703-725, May.
    12. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2024. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public: Promise or False Hope?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 425-457, June.
    13. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Measuring the Financial Sophistication of Households," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 393-398, May.
    14. Carvalho, Carlos & Nechio, Fernanda, 2014. "Do people understand monetary policy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 108-123.
    15. Francesco Grigoli & Damiano Sandri & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2026. "Monetary Policy According to Households: Perceptions, Reactions and Channels," NBER Working Papers 35127, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. 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.
    17. Roberto Colarieti & Pierfrancesco Mei & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2024. "The How and Why of Household Reactions to Income Shocks," NBER Working Papers 32191, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Link, Sebastian & Peichl, Andreas & Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Information frictions among firms and households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-115.
    19. Xin Meng & Youwei Zhang & Xichang Zhang & Shenchao Jin & Tingran Wang & Liang Jiang & Liantuan Xiao & Suotang Jia & Yanhong Xiao, 2023. "Machine learning assisted vector atomic magnetometry," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    20. Lovisa Reiche, 2023. "That’s what she said: An Empirical Investigation on the Gender Gap in Inflation Expectations," Economics Series Working Papers 1025, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    21. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2017. "Dampening General Equilibrium: From Micro to Macro," NBER Working Papers 23379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Michael Weber & Bernardo Candia & Hassan Afrouzi & Tiziano Ropele & Rodrigo Lluberas & Serafin Frache & Brent Meyer & Saten Kumar & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Dimitris Georgarakos & Olivier Coibion & Geoff, 2025. "Tell Me Something I Don't Already Know: Learning in Low‐ and High‐Inflation Settings," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 93(1), pages 229-264, January.
    23. Marek Jarociński & Peter Karadi, 2020. "Deconstructing Monetary Policy Surprises—The Role of Information Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 1-43, April.
    24. Xinglong Chang & Jianrong Wang & Rui Guo & Yingkui Wang & Weihao Li, 2023. "Asymmetric Graph Contrastive Learning," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-13, October.
    25. 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.
    26. Alberto Binetti & Francesco Nuzzi & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2024. "People's Understanding of Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation in the COVID Era and Beyond, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. 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, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    28. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido & Javier Vallés, 2007. "Understanding the Effects of Government Spending on Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(1), pages 227-270, March.
    29. Peter Andrebriq & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2958-2991.
    30. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2014. "The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 5-44, March.
    31. Luigi Paciello & Mirko Wiederholt, 2014. "Exogenous Information, Endogenous Information, and Optimal Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 356-388.
    32. Binetti, Alberto & Nuzzi, Francesco & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2024. "People’s understanding of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(S).
    33. Colarieti, Roberto & Mei, Pierfrancesco & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2024. "The How and Why of Household Reactions to Income Shocks," CEPR Discussion Papers 18865, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    34. , Yusnia, 2023. "Perceptions And Learning In Organizations," OSF Preprints ju59r, Center for Open Science.
    35. 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.
    36. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2016. "Learning from Inflation Experiences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 53-87.
    37. repec:osf:osfxxx:ju59r_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    39. John H. Cochrane, 2017. "Michelson-Morley, Fisher, and Occam: The Radical Implications of Stable Quiet Inflation at the Zero Bound," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2017, volume 32, pages 113-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Weinan E & Ruimeng Hu & Shige Peng, 2023. "Deep Learning in Finance," Digital Finance, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-2, March.
    41. Francesco D'Acunto & Fiorella De Fiore & Damiano Sandri & Michael Weber, 2025. "A global survey of household perceptions and expectations," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    42. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    43. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    44. Marijn A. Bolhuis & Judd N. L. Cramer & Karl Oskar Schulz & Lawrence H. Summers, 2024. "The Cost of Money is Part of the Cost of Living: New Evidence on the Consumer Sentiment Anomaly," NBER Working Papers 32163, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    45. 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.
    46. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Rupal Kamdar, 2018. "The Formation of Expectations, Inflation, and the Phillips Curve," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1447-1491, December.
    47. Giannone, Domenico & Primiceri, Giorgio, 2024. "The drivers of post-pandemic inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 19377, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    48. Wen Wang & Beibei Li & Xueming Luo & Xiaoyi Wang, 2023. "Deep Reinforcement Learning for Sequential Targeting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(9), pages 5439-5460, September.
    49. Lennon H. T. Choy & Winky K. O. Ho, 2023. "The Use of Machine Learning in Real Estate Research," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-15, March.
    50. Stefano NASINI & Rabia NESSAH, 2021. "Endogenous Learning in Multi-Sector Economies," Working Papers 2021-EQM-08, IESEG School of Management, revised Oct 2023.
    51. Gwangmin Kim & Carola Binder, 2023. "Learning-through-Survey in Inflation Expectations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 254-278, April.
    52. Chen Liu & Chao Wang & Minh-Ngoc Tran & Robert Kohn, 2023. "Deep Learning Enhanced Realized GARCH," Papers 2302.08002, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    53. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2020. "Slack and Cyclically Sensitive Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(S2), pages 393-428, December.
    54. Gang Chen & Qingchang Hu & Jin Wang & Xu Wang & Yuyu Zhu, 2023. "Machine-Learning-Based Electric Power Forecasting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-21, July.
    55. Yen, Benjamin P.-C. & Luo, Yu, 2023. "Navigational guidance – A deep learning approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 310(3), pages 1179-1191.
    56. Vanessa Smer-Barreto & Andrea Quintanilla & Richard J. R. Elliott & John C. Dawson & Jiugeng Sun & Víctor M. Campa & Álvaro Lorente-Macías & Asier Unciti-Broceta & Neil O. Carragher & Juan Carlos Acos, 2023. "Discovery of senolytics using machine learning," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    57. Jie Su & Jinhao Wan & Taotao Li & Xiong Li & Yuheng Ye, 2023. "Variational Disentangle Zero-Shot Learning," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-13, August.
    58. Maarten van Rooij & Rob Alessie & Annamaria Lusardi, 2024. "Financial literacy in the DNB Household Survey: Insights from innovative data collection," Working Papers 815, DNB.
    59. Meeks, Roland & Monti, Francesca, 2023. "Heterogeneous beliefs and the Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 41-54.
    60. Davide Debortoli & Jordi Galí, 2025. "Heterogeneity and Aggregate Fluctuations: Insights from TANK Models," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 307-357.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:ecb:ecbdps:202424 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Lena Dräger & Michael J. Lamla, 2024. "Consumers' macroeconomic expectations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 427-451, April.
    3. Link, Sebastian & Peichl, Andreas & Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Information frictions among firms and households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 99-115.
    4. Farhart, Christina E. & Struby, Ethan, 2026. "Inflation expectations and political polarization: Evidence from the cooperative election study," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. Francesco D'Acunto & Janet Gao & Lu Liu & Kai Lu & Zhengwei Wang & Jun Yang, 2025. "Subjective Expectations and Financial Intermediation," CESifo Working Paper Series 11780, CESifo.
    6. Buelens, Christian, 2025. "Googling ‘inflation’: Household inflation attention across the euro area," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Gaurav Kumar Singh & Tathagata Bandyopadhyay, 2024. "Determinants of disagreement: Learning from inflation expectations survey of households," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 326-343, March.
    8. Francesco D’Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Michael Weber, 2022. "Managing Households’ Expectations with Unconventional Policies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 1597-1642.
    9. Andrade, Philippe & Gautier, Erwan & Mengus, Eric, 2023. "What matters in households’ inflation expectations?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 50-68.
    10. Alistair Macaulay, 2026. "The Causal Effects of Heterogeneous Expectation Formation in General Equilibrium," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0326, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    11. Sarantis Tsiaplias, 2024. "Inflation as a 'bad', heuristics and aggregate shocks: New evidence on expectation formation," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2024n03, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    12. Paul Hubert & Giovanni Ricco, 2018. "Imperfect Information in Macroeconomics," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(3), pages 181-196.
    13. Peter Andrebriq & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2958-2991.
    14. Lovisa Reiche & Gabriele Galati & Richhild Moessner & Maarten van Rooij, 2026. "Who’s on Fire? Household Characteristics and the Formation of Inflation Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 12450, CESifo.
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7rrg4irjh79549mkjh27en0pos is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Klaus Gründler & Michael Lamla & Niklas Potrafke & Timo Wochner, 2026. "Experts as Intermediaries," CESifo Working Paper Series 12492, CESifo.
    17. Zarifhonarvar, Ali, 2026. "Generating inflation expectations with large language models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    18. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Francesco Ferlaino & Carolina Serpieri, 2026. "Inflation Inattention and the Consumption Gap," Working Papers in Public Economics 280, Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Rome.
    19. Benchimol, Jonathan & Bounader, Lahcen & Dotta, Mario, 2025. "Estimating Behavioral Inattention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    20. Conrad, Christian & Lahiri, Kajal, 2023. "Heterogeneous expectations among professional forecasters," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-062, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    21. José‐Elías Gallegos, 2026. "HANK Beyond FIRE: Amplification, Forward Guidance, and Belief Shocks," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 67(1), pages 225-258, February.
    22. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • 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
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    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:ces:ceswps:_12784. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.