Long-run Inflation Expectations Research Articles

Recent Developments in Macro-Econometric Modeling: Theory and Applications

Developments in macro-econometrics have been evolving since the aftermath of the Second World War.[...]

Is the Anchoring of Consumers' Inflation Expectations Shaped by Inflation Experience?

In this paper, we explore the degree of anchoring of consumers’ individual long-run inflation expectations utilizing the University of Michigan Survey of Consumer’s rotating panel micro-structure. Our results indicate that long-run inflation expectations became more anchored over the last decades, as the degree of co-movement between short- and long-run expectations fell significantly. While we observe that the anchoring of expectations increases for all age and birth cohorts, it seems that older cohorts, who experienced the high inflation period of the 1970s, remain less anchored in their long-run inflation expectations as compared to the young cohorts. Older cohorts show a higher volatility in their degree of anchoring and react more to adverse news shocks. This alludes to potentially long-lasting costs of high inflation spells.

Anchored Inflation Expectations

We develop a theory of low-frequency movements in inflation expectations, and use it to interpret joint dynamics of inflation and inflation expectations for the United States and other countries over the post-war period. In our theory long-run inflation expectations are endogenous. They are driven by short-run inflation surprises, in a way that depends on recent forecasting performance and monetary policy. This distinguishes our theory from common explanations of low-frequency properties of inflation. The model, estimated using only inflation and short-term forecasts from professional surveys, accurately predicts observed measures of long-term inflation expectations and identifies episodes of unanchored expectations.

Digging into the Downward Trend in Consumer Inflation Expectations

Since mid-2014, the long-run inflation expectations of consumers have been declining. We analyze University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers microdata and find that a decline in uncertainty about future inflation is a modest part of the story over this period—but it represents the entire story when considering changes in expectations since 2012.

New Zealand's experience with changing its inflation target and the impact on inflation expectations

ABSTRACTWe document the experience of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in changing its inflation target, particularly the effects on inflation expectations. First, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model is used to highlight expectation formation in the transmission following a change in the inflation target. Second, a Nelson–Siegel model is used to combine a number of inflation expectation surveys into a continuous curve where expectations can be plotted as a function of the forecast horizon. Using estimates of long-run inflation expectations derived from the Nelson–Siegel model, we find that numerical changes in the inflation target result in an immediate change in inflation expectations.

The Macroeconomic Risks of Undesirably Low Inflation

This paper investigates the macroeconomic risks associated with undesirably low inflation using a medium-sized New Keynesian model. We consider different causes of persistently low inflation, including a downward shift in long-run inflation expectations, a fall in nominal wage growth, and a favorable supply-side shock. We show that the macroeconomic effects of persistently low inflation depend crucially on its underlying cause, as well as on the extent to which monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound. Finally, we discuss policy options to mitigate these effects.

An empirical decomposition of the liquidity premium in breakeven inflation rates

Abstract In this paper, we propose a novel way to calculate the relative liquidity premium between the nominal and inflation-indexed government bonds. We assume that both nominal and inflation-indexed bonds contain liquidity premium. Moreover, the methodology that is used in the paper does not need survey data to extract changes in the long-run inflation expectations. Hence, we can report the changes in the long-run inflation expectations on a daily basis. We apply this methodology to the Turkish bond market data. Results of the paper indicate the existence of a relative liquidity premium that takes values between -31 basis points and 43 basis points for the period between October 2012 and November 2015. This result also shows that the inflation-indexed bonds sometimes can be more liquid than nominal bonds in Turkey.

The macroeconomic risks of undesirably low inflation

This paper investigates the macroeconomic risks associated with undesirably low inflation using a medium-sized New Keynesian model. We consider different causes of persistently low inflation, including a downward shift in long-run inflation expectations, a fall in nominal wage growth, and a favorable supply-side shock. We show that the macroeconomic effects of persistently low inflation depend crucially on its underlying cause, as well as on the extent to which monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound. Finally, we discuss policy options to mitigate these effects.

Are Long-Term Inflation Expectations Well Anchored in Brazil, Chile and Mexico?

In this paper, we consider whether long-term inflation expectations have become better anchored in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. We do so using survey-based measures as well as financial market-based measures of long-term inflation expectations, where we construct the market-based measures from daily prices on nominal and inflation-linked bonds. This paper is the first to examine the evidence from Brazil and Mexico, making use of the fact that markets for longterm government debt have become better developed over the past decade. We find that inflation expectations have become much better anchored over the past decade in all three countries, as a testament to the improved credibility of the central banks in these countries when it comes to keeping inflation low. That said, one-year inflation compensation in the far future displays some sensitivity to at least one macroeconomic data release per country. However, the impact of these releases is small and it does not appear that investors systematically alter their expectations for inflation as a result of surprises in monetary policy, consumer prices, or real activity variables. Finally, long-run inflation expectations in Brazil appear to have been less well anchored than in Chile and Mexico.

Abenomics: Preliminary Analysis and Outlook

In early 2013, Japan enacted a monetary regime change. The Bank of Japan set a 2 percent inflation target and specified concrete actions to achieve this goal by 2015. In 2013, Shinzo Abe’s government supported this change with fiscal policy and planned structural reforms. Together with the Bank of Japan’s aggressive monetary easing, this policy package is known as “Abenomics.” We show that Abenomics ended deflation in 2013 and raised long-run inflation expectations. Our estimates suggest that Abenomics also raised 2013 output growth by 0.9 to 1.8 percentage points. Monetary policy alone accounted for up to a percentage point of growth, largely through positive effects on consumption. In both the medium and the long run, Abenomics will likely continue to be stimulative. However, the size of this effect, while highly uncertain, thus far appears likely to fall short of Japan’s large output gap. In part this is because the Bank of Japan’s 2 percent inflation target is not yet fully credible. We conclude by outlining a way to interpret future data releases in light of our results.

Bond futures, inflation-indexed bonds, and inflation risk premium

We propose a new approach to measuring long-run inflation risk, the inflation risk premium, and inflation expectations for the UK over the period 1985–2012. By adding long-term bond futures to the information set of inflation-indexed and nominal bonds, inflation risk is measured as an incremental time-varying covariance obtained from a trivariate GARCH model with dynamic conditional correlations (DCC). The time-varying inflation risk premium and inflation expectations are extracted from the breakeven yield using the risk premium obtained from the previous step. We find that the risk premium has been decreasing over the sample period, with an average value of 87 basis points. The estimated long-run inflation expectations suggest that credibility has been improving over the period of inflation targeting policy, and are in line with the role of inflation targeting policy in anchoring expectations.

Anchoring of Consumers’ Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Microdata

In this paper we explore the degree of anchoring of consumers’ long-run inflation expectations. If expectations are firmly anchored, short- and long-run expectations should show no comovement in response to transitory shocks. Utilizing the University of Michigan Survey of Consumer’s rotating panel microstructure, we can identify changes in inflation expectations of individual consumers over time. Our results indicate that long-run inflation expectations became more anchored over the last decades. While the degree of comovement fell significantly after 1996, the probability of a joint adjustment stayed constant. Regarding the possible determinants, we find that consumers’ rising interest rate expectations and perceived news on the monetary policy stance have a detrimental effect on the anchoring of long-run expectations. This effect is no longer present in the post-1996 period. Notably, a positive effect of perceived news on government debt on the degree of comovement emerges after 1996, alluding to a potentially problematic link between fiscal and monetary policy.

Imperfect Information and Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Microdata

We investigate the updating behavior of individual consumers regarding their short and long-run inflation expectations. Utilizing the University of Michigan Survey of Consumer’s rotating panel microstructure, we can identify whether individuals adjust their inflation expectations over a period of six months. We find evidence that the updating frequency has been underestimated. Furthermore, looking at the possible determinants of an update we find support for imperfect information models. Moreover, individual expectations are found to be more accurate after an update and forecast accuracy is affected by inflation volatility measures and news regarding inflation. Finally, the updating frequency is found to significantly move spreads in bond markets.

Updating inflation expectations: Evidence from micro-data

Utilizing the Michigan Household Consumer survey’s rotating panel microstructure we can identify if individuals have adjusted their expectations towards inflation. This allows us to directly capture the updating behavior of individual consumers regarding their short- and long-run inflation expectations.

Aggregate Stock Market Illiquidity and Bond Risk Premia

In this paper, we study the link between government bonds and cross-section of stocks. We provide new evidence that links the stock market liquidity to sovereign bond risk premia. We find that the stock market illiquidity variable adds to the well-established Cochrane-Piazzesi and Ludvigson-Ng factors. It explains 10%, 9%, 7%, and 7% of the one-year-ahead variation in the excess return for two-, three-, four-, and five-year bonds respectively and increases the adjusted R2 by 3-6% across all maturities over Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005) and Ludvigson and Ng (2009) factors. The effects are highly statistically and economically significant both in and out of sample. We find that our result is robust to and is not driven by information from open interest in the futures market, long-run inflation expectations, and dispersion in beliefs. We argue that stock market illiquidity is a timely variable that is associated with the state of funding liquidity.

Yield curve in an estimated nonlinear macro model

This paper estimates a sticky price macro model with US macro and term structure data using Bayesian methods. The model is solved by a nonlinear method. The posterior distribution of the parameters in the model is found to be bi-modal. The degree of nominal rigidity is high at one mode (“sticky price mode”) but is low at the other mode (“flexible price mode”). I find that the degree of nominal rigidity is important for identifying macro shocks that affect the yield curve. When prices are more flexible, a slowly varying inflation target of the central bank is the main driver of the overall level of the yield curve by changing long-run inflation expectations. In contrast, when prices are more sticky, a highly persistent markup shock is the main driver. The posterior probability of each mode is sensitive to the use of observed proxies for inflation expectations. Ignoring additional information from survey data on inflation expectations significantly reduces the posterior probability of the flexible price mode. Incorporating this additional information suggests that yield curve fluctuations can be better understood by focusing on the flexible price mode. Considering nonlinearities of the model solution also increases the posterior probability of the flexible price mode, although to a lesser degree than using survey data information.

Decomposing the declining volatility of long-term inflation expectations

The level and volatility of survey-based measures of long-term inflation expectations have come down dramatically over the past several decades. To capture these changes in inflation dynamics, we embed both short- and long-term expectations into a medium-scale VAR model with stochastic volatility. The model estimates attribute most of the marked decline in the volatility of expectations to smaller shocks to long-run inflation expectations. According to our estimates, the volatility of shocks plummeted in the early to mid-1980s, moved to a somewhat higher level that prevailed for much of the 1990s, and then declined to and remained at very low levels.

Does Inflation Targeting Anchor Long-Run Inflation Expectations? Evidence from the U.S., UK, and Sweden

Does Inflation Targeting Anchor Long-Run Inflation Expectations? Evidence from the U.S., UK, and Sweden

Measuring Inflation Persistence: A Structural Time Series Approach

Time series estimates of inflation persistence incur an upward bias if shifts in the inflation target of the central bank remain unaccounted for. Using a structural time series approach we measure different sorts of inflation persistence allowing for an unobserved time-varying inflation target. Unobserved components are identified using Kalman filtering and smoothing techniques. Posterior densities of the model parameters and the unobserved components are obtained in a Bayesian framework based on importance sampling. We find that inflation persistence, expressed by the half-life of a shock, can range from 1 quarter in case of a cost-push shock to several years for a shock to long-run inflation expectations or the output gap.

Gauging Risks for Deflation

This paper discusses deflation risks and policy options. The paper highlights that slumping collateral values have exacerbated the credit crunch, and monetary policy has lost effectiveness in stabilizing output. A model-based analysis for the G3 economies (United States, euro area, and Japan) also suggests that, on the assumption that the financial distress is gradually resolved, the most likely outcome is that the global economy will stay clear of sustained deflation. However, if financial sector problems are not remedied or further shocks add to current stresses, there is a significant probability of more negative deflationary outcomes, with a deeper and more prolonged recession. The chapter underscores the crucial role of financial sector policies in remedying deflationary pressures directly and indirectly, by enhancing the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies. Monetary policy can help in some areas; however, supportive fiscal policies are likely to be needed to prevent a deflationary episode becoming entrenched. Monetary policy measures include operating in a broad range of financial markets to relieve credit rationing, and to lower risk spreads and term premiums. Finally, to reinforce long-run inflation expectations, central bank communications should emphasize the commitment to return inflation to objectives with all due speed.