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The Inattentive Consumer: Sentiment and Expectations

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  • Rupal Kamdar

    (UC Berkeley)

Abstract

Expectations play a crucial role in macroeconomic models and are commonly assumed to be full-information rational. However, information is vast, costly to obtain, and difficult to understand. Using survey data, I show that consumer beliefs about economic variables are driven by a single component: sentiment. When consumers are "optimistic" (have positive sentiment), they expect the economy to expand but inflation to decline. This correlation stands in contrast to recent U.S. experience. I explain these stylized facts with a model of a rationally inattentive consumer who faces uncertainty about fundamentals. To economize on information costs, the consumer chooses to reduce the dimensionality of the problem and obtain a signal that is a linear combination of fundamentals. Optimal information gathering results in covariances of beliefs that differ from the underlying data-generating process, and in particular leads to countercyclical price beliefs. Thus, monetary policies that aim to stimulate the economy by raising inflation expectations can have counterproductive consequences.

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  • Rupal Kamdar, 2019. "The Inattentive Consumer: Sentiment and Expectations," 2019 Meeting Papers 647, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  • Handle: RePEc:red:sed019:647
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2020. "Forward Guidance and Household Expectations," Working Papers 2020-07, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    3. Lutz Kilian & Xiaoqing Zhou, 2020. "Oil Prices, Gasoline Prices and Inflation Expectations: A New Model and New Facts," Working Papers 2025, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Mackowiak, Bartosz Adam & Matejka, Filip & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2020. "Rational Inattention: A Review," CEPR Discussion Papers 15408, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Olivier Armantier & Gizem Koşar & Jason Somerville & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert Van der Klaauw & John C. Williams, 2022. "The Curious Case of the Rise in Deflation Expectations," Staff Reports 1037, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Suah, Jing Lian, 2020. "Uncertainty and Exchange Rates: Global Dynamics (Well, I Don't Quite Know Anymore)," MPRA Paper 109087, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Olena Kostyshyna & Luba Petersen & Jing Yang, 2022. "A Horse Race of Monetary Policy Regimes: An Experimental Investigation," Staff Working Papers 22-33, Bank of Canada.
    10. 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.
    11. Meyer, Brent H. & Prescott, Brian & Sheng, Xuguang Simon, 2022. "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business expectations," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 529-544.
    12. Anmol Bhandari & Jaroslav Borovicka & Paul Ho, 2019. "Survey Data and Subjective Beliefs in Business Cycle Models," Working Paper 19-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    13. Abildgren, Kim & Kuchler, Andreas, 2021. "Revisiting the inflation perception conundrum," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Armantier, Olivier & Sbordone, Argia & Topa, Giorgio & van der Klaauw, Wilbert & Williams, John C., 2022. "A new approach to assess inflation expectations anchoring using strategic surveys," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(S), pages 82-101.
    15. Armantier, Olivier & Koşar, Gizem & Pomerantz, Rachel & Skandalis, Daphné & Smith, Kyle & Topa, Giorgio & van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2021. "How economic crises affect inflation beliefs: Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 443-469.
    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. Lutz Kilian & Xiaoqing Zhou, 2022. "Oil prices, gasoline prices, and inflation expectations," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(5), pages 867-881, August.
    18. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2022. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Post-Print hal-03878692, HAL.
    19. Carola Binder, 2020. "Coronavirus Fears and Macroeconomic Expectations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 721-730, October.
    20. Alistair Macaulay, 2022. "Heterogeneous Information, Subjective Model Beliefs, and the Time-Varying Transmission of Shocks," CESifo Working Paper Series 9733, CESifo.
    21. 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.
    22. Armantier, Olivier & Filippin, Antonio & Neubauer, Michael & Nunziata, Luca, 2022. "The expected price of keeping up with the Joneses," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1203-1220.
    23. Suah, Jing Lian, 2022. "Impact of uncertainty and exchange rate shocks: Theory and global empirics," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

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