Inflation Expectations of European Consumers after the Crisis. Do Macro Variables Drive Expectations?

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between consumer expectations and macro variables. The research covers five EU member states: Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania in the period from 2011 to 2015. Its aim is to find long-run dependence of expectations and financial and real sphere variables in the post-crisis era. No previous studies for this sample and time span exist: this paper contributes to the strand of the literature detecting formation patterns of expectations. VAR/VEC models are estimated in order to trace impulse response to expectations. Five different stories have been found about expectation formation for each economy.