Inflation Expectations and Monetary Policy Surprises*

We estimate monetary policy surprises for European consumers over time, based on monetary policy changes that were unanticipated according to consumers’ stated beliefs. We find that such monetary policy surprises have the opposite impact on inflation expectations from the impact found when assuming that consumers are well informed. Relaxing the latter assumption by focusing on consumers’ stated beliefs, unanticipated increases in the interest rate raise inflation expectations before the 2008 financial crisis. This is consistent with imperfect information theoretical settings where interest rate hikes are interpreted as positive news about the state of the economy by consumers who know that policymakers have relatively more information.     

Fed speak on main street: Central bank communication and household expectations

Central banks emphasize the use of communication as a tool of monetary policy. As central banks increasingly recognize that low public informedness limits their ability to communicate with the general public, several have begun to explicitly tailor their communication strategies for a broader audience. Most research focuses on central bank communication with financial markets, but several recent strands of literature address aspects of communication with households. I survey the literature addressing the rationales and efficacy of central bank communication with households, supplementing this with new evidence from an assortment of consumer survey data. I draw from the literature on rational inattention, financial literacy, and political communication to suggest explanations for limited household receptiveness to central bank communications. Finally, I focus on one specific aim of central bank communication, which is to anchor inflation expectations. Previous literature finds that the announcement of an explicit inflation target helps anchor expectations among financial market participants. Using U.S. consumer survey data, I show that consumers’ expectations are imperfectly anchored and that the anchoring of more informed consumers’ expectations increased more than the anchoring of less informed consumers’ expectations following the Fed’s announcement of a 2% inflation target.     

Market power and efficiency

This paper introduces new measures of the mean and variance of inflation and growth expectations, based on tendency survey data from four major European economies. The expectations measures are technically ‘irrational’, but more accurate than naive alternatives; expectations errors do not persist for more than a year. Unexpected inflation, and uncertainties about inflation and growth, play the roles assigned them by New Classical macroeconomic theory, respectively raising and lowering real activity. All the expectations, uncertainties and errors appear more closely correlated across countries than experience would justify, suggesting that unpredictable disturbances typically have an internal rather than an international origin.     

Inflation surprises and inflation expectations in the Euro area

In the second half of 2012, euro area inflation started declining and reached historical lows at the end of 2014. Market-based measures of inflation expectations also declined to unprecedented levels. During this disinflationary period, inflation releases have often surprised analysts on the downside. We provide evidence that inflation ‘surprises’ have significant effects on inflation expectations. The sensitivity of inflation expectations to the surprises, which has varied over time, disappeared after the introduction of the Asset Purchase Programme by the European Central Bank.     

Anchoring of inflation expectations in the euro area: Recent evidence based on survey data

This article analyses the anchoring of inflation expectations of professional forecasters and consumers in the euro area. We study anchoring, defined as the central bank's ability to manage expectations, by paying special attention to the impact of the ECB inflation target and ECB inflation projections on inflation expectations. Our analysis indicates that in the post-crisis period longer-term inflation expectations have become somewhat more sensitive to shorter-term ones and to actual HICP inflation. We also find that the ECB inflation projections have recently become more important for short- and medium-term expectations of professional forecasters and at the same time the role of the ECB inflation target for those expectations has diminished. Overall, our analysis suggests that in recent years inflation expectations in the euro area have shown some signs of de-anchoring.     

Measuring inflation expectations: a survey data approach

Measures of expected inflation from consumer surveys are derived using a modification of the Carlson-Parkin probability approach, which does not assume unbiasedness of expectations, makes use of survey data on expected future as well as perceived past price developments and allows for time varying response thresholds. We apply this method to the normal, central-t and noncentral-t distributions, thereby investigating the effects of nonnormal peakedness and asymmetry. We find that the effects on expected inflation of the former are small and of the latter are substantial, without increasing the accuracy of the expectations, however. Expected and actual inflation show substantial persistence, and, for most of our expectations measures, are cointegrated. Furthermore, the forecast error is stationary, implying weak-form rationality. The co-movement of currently observed expected inflation measures and the unobserved 12-months-ahead inflation rate is of interest for policy makers, for example in the direct inflation targeting strategy. Notwithstanding this, caution is warranted in using them as information variables because the inflation expected by consumers is no causal determinant of actual future inflation.     

通胀预期对未来住房价格的影响——基于消费者信心指数的分析

以消费者信心指数作为通货膨胀预期指标,以中国1999—2010年住房市场月度数据为样本,实证检验通货膨胀预期对未来住房价格的影响。实证检验结果表明,通货膨胀预期会导致住房价格上涨,即生产者和消费者对通货膨胀预期将推动住房价格的不断上涨,因此,稳定通货膨胀预期对于稳定住房价格具有十分重要的作用。     

Directional analysis of consumers’ forecasts of inflation in a small open economy: evidence from South Korea

We evaluate the directional accuracy of consumers’ forecasts of inflation in predicting the movement of the actual CPI in a small open economy. In order to do so, we use a method developed by Pesaran and Timmermann (2009), based on South Korean data. By illustrating an application of the new market-timing test, we show that consumers’ expectations of inflation are not a useful predictor of the CPI in South Korea. Our findings suggest that the directional accuracy of consumers’ 1-year-ahead forecasts of inflation is not affected by the inflation targeting of the Bank of Korea. Our findings also suggest that consumers’ 1-year-ahead forecasts of inflation are scattered away from the Bank of Korea’s inflation target.     

Inflation Dynamics in the Euro Area and the Role of Expectations

This paper examines the empirical performance of the New Keynesian Phillips curve and its hybrid specification in the euro area. Instead of imposing rational expectations, direct measures, i.e. OECD forecasts, are used as empirical proxies for economic agents’ inflation expectations. Real marginal costs are proxied by three alternative measures. The results suggest that once the rational expectations hypothesis is relaxed and directly measured expectations are used, the European inflation process can be modeled using the forward-looking New Keynesian Phillips curve. However, when allowing for possible non-rationalities in expectations, inflation can be modeled more accurately by the hybrid Phillips curve with the additional lagged inflation term. In this approach, output gap turns out to be at least as good as labor income share as a proxy for real marginal cost. Moreover, the inflation process seems to have become more forward-looking in the recent years of low and stable inflation.The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bank of Finland. Special thanks are due to the editor, two anonymous referees, Juha Tarkka, Jouko Vilmunen and Matti Virén for useful comments. I am also grateful to David Mayes and Geoffrey Wood for helpful suggestions and to Heli Tikkunen for excellent research assistance. For their constructive comments, I would also thank participants in the conference on the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network at the ECB, which was held in Frankfurt in December 2003.     

通货膨胀预期形成、锚定:基于消费者和经济学家预期的分析

本文在区分居民通货膨胀预期和经济学家通货膨胀预期的基础上,研究通货膨胀预期形成和锚定的特点,发现经济学家通货膨胀预期呈现不规则的正态分布,往往在通货膨胀实际值较低时更多的经济学家做出偏高预期.居民通货膨胀预期显示低收入阶层对物价上涨更为敏感,大城市居民通货膨胀预期最敏感.总体如果半数以上的人认为物价上涨,则出现恶性通货膨胀的概率增加.发现居民物价预期指数是通货膨胀的格兰杰成冈,但经济学家通货膨胀预期却不必然导致通货膨胀发生.国际比较发现英国居民物价预期指数显著高于中国.锚定通货膨胀预期的关键是防止通货膨胀预期加速形成,防止中央银行陷入通货膨胀预期陷阱,为此需要单一化中央银行职责,建立通货膨胀预期中期监测机制,竖立中央银行反对通货膨胀的信任度.     

How anchored are inflation expectations in EMU countries?

Anchored inflation expectations help stabilize inflation. Previous results indicate that monetary policy has been effective in breaking the link between actual and expected inflation at the euro area level. In this paper we examine whether this is also true at the national level. We define the ‘disconnect’ between inflation and inflation expectations and then proceed to examine the extent to which this disconnect exists for a number of euro area countries. Our findings suggest that for some countries, their own inflation experiences still affect national inflation expectations, and certainly more by comparison to how they affect the aggregate euro area level.     

The reaction of disagreements in inflation expectations to fiscal sentiment obtained from information in official communiqués

Using official communiqués about fiscal policy, we develop a fiscal sentiment indicator, and we verify the reaction of disagreements in inflation expectations to fiscal sentiment. This analysis is relevant to inflation targeting (IT) countries because transparency and communication can influence expectations. The results suggest that a more optimistic fiscal sentiment reduces disagreements in inflation expectations. Estimates show that, for higher disagreements in inflation expectations at 12-month maturity, an optimistic fiscal sentiment can reduce the disagreement more sharply. In turn, the fiscal sentiment effect on the disagreement for the 48-month maturity is stronger the smaller the disagreement is. The results allow us to outline the following policy recommendations. First, an optimistic fiscal environment is important in the task of guiding inflation expectations and reducing inflation uncertainty. Second, fiscal communication is an important tool for the expectations formation process, and therefore it must be carefully managed to help in the task of forward guidance of inflation expectations, being important for the IT regime. Third, both fiscal credibility and monetary policy credibility are important for the expectations formation process, particularly for the reduction of inflation uncertainty, representing aspects that must be preserved in countries that adopt the IT regime.     

Comparing alternative Phillips curve specifications: European results with survey-based expectations

This article examines inflation dynamics in Europe. Econometric specification tests with pooled European data are used to compare the empirical performance of the New Classical, New Keynesian and Hybrid specifications of the Phillips curve. Instead of imposing any specific form of expectations formation, direct measures, i.e. Consensus Economics survey data are used to proxy economic agents’ inflation expectations. According to the results, the New Classical Phillips curve has satisfactory statistical properties. Moreover, the purely forward-looking New Keynesian Phillips curve is clearly outperformed by the New Classical and Hybrid Phillips curves. We interpret our results as indicating that the European inflation process is not purely forward looking and inflation cannot instantaneously adjust to changes in expectations. Consequently, even allowing for possible nonrationality in expectations results in a lagged inflation term entering the New Keynesian Phillips curve for inflation dynamics in Europe.     

Business Cycle Synchronization in Europe: Evidence from a Dynamic Factor Model

This paper revisits the effect of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) on the extent of business cycle synchronization across its member states. A dynamic latent factor model is used to identify the ‘regional’ effect of the euro area on output growth and inflation dynamics across European countries. The results of variance decomposition analysis confirm that both output growth and inflation tended to be more synchronized among European countries during the run-up to the EMU, but there is no strong evidence to support the argument that the ‘regional’ effects prevailed after 1999.     

Do inflation targets anchor inflation expectations?

We suggest a simple test of whether an inflation target anchors private-sector inflation expectations. The test is easy to compute and it is robust to various sources of misspecification. The test may be a useful alternative to dispersion measures commonly studied in research on inflation targeting. Using data for 22 inflation targeting countries, we find for many countries that the forecasters scatter their inflation forecasts away from the inflation target. We account for the endogeneity of inflation targets, we study the variability of our finding across countries and across time, and we study to which extent our results depend on the level and variability of inflation targets.     

The Formation of Consumer Inflationary Expectations in Australia*

This paper analyzes the quantitative price expectations of consumers as obtained from consumer surveys. Price expectations are considered as functions of (i) past rates of inflation (ii) other economic variables, and (iii) consumer sentiment variables. The dominant influence on expectations is the most recent change in the consumer price index. Wage-indexation decisions and changes in the money supply also exert a significant influence on mean expectations. The variability of price expectations across consumers is proportional to the mean level of expectations.     

Threshold,smooth transition and mean reversion in inflation: New evidence from European countries

Knowing the absence or presence of a unit root in inflation is helpful not only in distinguishing between different economic hypotheses but is also important to monetary authorities in implementing the policies of disinflation. Using data for fourteen European countries, this study investigates the issue of nonstationarity in inflation by considering the possibility of nonlinearity. In particular, we consider the properties of a threshold, smooth transition and structural break in testing for a unit root in the inflation rates. By and large, the results support the view that the inflation rates of the European countries are characterized by a unit root process based on the conventional linear unit root tests. However, the results of the nonlinear unit root tests show that the inflation rates are characterized by nonlinear mean reversion after considering the nonlinear properties of the threshold, smooth transition and structural break. The mean reversion in inflation favors the hypothesis of, for example, the natural rate of inflation and the sticky-price model and implies that shocks only have transitory effects.     

Inflationary expectations and monetary policy: evidence from Bangladesh

This article first estimates inflationary expectations using a Blanchard–Quah VAR model by decomposing the nominal interest rate into expected inflation and the ex ante real interest rate. Then I utilize this expected inflation along with other macroeconomic variables as inputs to the monetary policy function in a recursive VAR model to identify exogenous policy shocks. To calculate inflationary expectations, I assume that ex ante real interest rate shocks do not have a long-run effect on the nominal interest rate. This article finds that the public expects lower inflation for the future during periods of high inflation. Estimated results from the recursive VAR suggest that a contractionary policy shock increases the real interest rate, appreciates domestic currency, and lowers inflationary expectations and industrial output. However, I find a lagged policy response from Bangladesh Bank to higher inflationary expectations.     

The negative side of inflation targeting: revisiting inflation uncertainty in the EMU

ABSTRACT

This article tests the Friedman–Ball hypothesis for the European Monetary Union (EMU) countries, using a GARCH methodology. The empirical results show a positive relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty, largely supportive of the Friedman–Ball hypothesis. Furthermore, the ECB’s price stability mandate is found to have asymmetric, if not limited, effects on inflation uncertainty since 1999, with the findings different for the so-called peripheral countries when compared to the core. For the majority of the EMU countries, shifts away from the 2% target served to increase inflation uncertainty. The credibility of the ECB since the financial crisis, in attempting to meet its 2% inflation target has seen inflation uncertainty increase for some, likely driven by inflation failing to re-anchor. Furthermore, recent periods of deflation are found to generate inflation uncertainty, with short-term price variability increasing in line with observed negative price growth for the majority of the EMU countries. The results are supportive of a U-shaped relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty. Using spline techniques, we formally provide support for such a U-shaped relation where inflation uncertainty broadly increases below a certain threshold for each country’s inflation rate. Asymmetric effects across countries are found in the level of this threshold.     

Conflict and inflation in industrial countries

This paper examines expirically the conflict theory of inflation, using a sample of pooled time-series, cross-section data over the period 1971–87 for 10 industrial countries: USA, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden. To this end a wage-price adjustment model based on the ideas of distributional conflict in wage formation and mark-up pricing in goods markets is set out. The model provides a satisfactory explanation of the inflationary process in industrial countries. It is shown that conflict between workers and capitalists over the distribution of income exerts a significant influence on the pattern of inflation. Import prices, inflationary expectations and labour market conditions are also important, with the latter acting as a regulator of class conflict.