IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/oruesi/2022_006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inflation Illiteracy – A Micro-Data Analysis

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Survey data indicate that a relatively large share of households is ill-informed about the rate of inflation in the economy, with perceived and expected rates of inflation deviating sub-stantially from official measures. Using Swedish micro-level data, we find that such inflation illiteracy is related to respondent characteristics, including income, education and sex.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersson, Fredrik N G & Hjalmarsson, Erik & Österholm, Pär, 2022. "Inflation Illiteracy – A Micro-Data Analysis," Working Papers 2022:6, Örebro University, School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2022_006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.oru.se/globalassets/oru-sv/institutioner/hh/workingpapers/workingpapers2022/wp-6-2022.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonung, Lars & Laidler, David E, 1988. "Are Perceptions of Inflation Rational? Some Evidence for Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1080-1087, December.
    2. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Fight or Flight? Portfolio Rebalancing by Individual Investors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 301-348.
    3. 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.
    4. Alberto Cavallo & Guillermo Cruces & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2017. "Inflation Expectations, Learning, and Supermarket Prices: Evidence from Survey Experiments," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 1-35, July.
    5. Michael Ehrmann & Damjan Pfajfar & Emiliano Santoro, 2017. "Consumers' Attitudes and Their Inflation Expectations," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 13(1), pages 225-259, February.
    6. Jonung, Lars, 1981. "Perceived and Expected Rates of Inflation in Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 961-968, December.
    7. Duca, John V. & Kumar, Anil, 2014. "Financial literacy and mortgage equity withdrawals," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 62-75.
    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. Hjalmarsson, Erik & Österholm, Pär, 2020. "Heterogeneity in households’ expectations of housing prices – evidence from micro data," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    2. Abildgren, Kim & Kuchler, Andreas, 2021. "Revisiting the inflation perception conundrum," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    3. Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "How Do Expectations about the Macroeconomy Affect Personal Expectations and Behavior?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 731-748, October.
    4. Young Bin Ahn & Yoichi Tsuchiya, 2022. "Consumer’s perceived and expected inflation in Japan—irrationality or asymmetric loss?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 1247-1292, September.
    5. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kumar, Saten & Pedemonte, Mathieu, 2020. "Inflation expectations as a policy tool?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    6. Junichi Kikuchi & Yoshiyuki Nakazono, 2023. "The Formation of Inflation Expectations: Microdata Evidence from Japan," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(6), pages 1609-1632, September.
    7. Vicente Maria R. & López Ana J., 2017. "Figuring Figures: Exploring Europeans’ Knowledge of Official Economic Statistics," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 33(4), pages 1051-1085, December.
    8. 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.
    9. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 109-152, July.
    10. John Y. Campbell, 2016. "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 1-30, May.
    11. Goldfayn-Frank, Olga & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2018. "How do consumers adapt to a new environment in their economic forecasting? Evidence from the German reunification," IMFS Working Paper Series 129, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    12. Dräger, Lena & Lamla, Michael J. & Pfajfar, Damjan, 2020. "The Hidden Heterogeneity of Inflation and Interest Rate Expectations: The Role of Preferences," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-666, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, revised Feb 2023.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2021_010 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. 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.
    15. Jarko Fidrmuc & Christa Hainz & Werner Hölzl, 2024. "Individual credit market experience and beliefs about bank lending policy: evidence from a firm survey," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 126(2), pages 387-414, April.
    16. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    17. 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.
    18. Andrej Gill & Florian Hett & Johannes Tischer, 2022. "Time Inconsistency and Overdraft Use: Evidence from Transaction Data and Behavioral Measurement Experiments," Working Papers 2205, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    19. Johnny Runge & Nathan Hudson-Sharp, 2020. "Public Understanding of Economics and Economic Statistics," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Occasional Papers ESCOE-OP-03, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    20. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Perceived inflation; Inflation expectations; Survey data; Economic literacy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

    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:hhs:oruesi:2022_006. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieoruse.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.