Public Information and Inflation Expectations: Microeconometric Evidence from a Natural Experiment
利用厄瓜多尔因软件错误导致官方通胀率数据失真的自然实验，发现公共信号显著影响家庭的价格预期，进而影响储蓄决策，且对高学历和年长者影响更强。
Governments provide public information to reduce information imperfections. Do households rely on public signals to inform themselves about market conditions? To identify the importance of public information in households' price expectations, we take advantage of a unique natural experiment in Ecuador where the published inflation rate had been different from the correct rate over a period of fourteen months due to a software error. We find that the public signal about prices plays an important role in households' price expectations, and the change in price expectations affects their savings choices. The effect is stronger for better-educated and older people. © 2012 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.