The Price Is Right: Updating Inflation Expectations in a Randomized Price Information Experiment
通过调查中嵌入的信息实验，研究消费者通胀预期如何响应新信息，发现消费者会依据信息强度与初始预期不确定性进行贝叶斯更新，且信息提供使预期分布收敛。
Understanding the formation of consumer inflation expectations is considered crucial for monetary policy. Using a unique “information ” experiment embedded in a survey, this paper investigates how consumers ’ inflation expectations respond to new information. We elicit respondents ’ expectations for future inflation before and after providing a random subset of respondents with factual information that may affect their expectations. This design creates unique panel data that allow us to identify causal effects of new information. We find that respondents, on average, update their expectations in response to (certain types of) provided information, and do so sensibly, in a manner consistent with Bayesian updating – with revisions systematically related to the strength of the information signal and uncertainty of baseline inflation expectations. Furthermore, we present evidence that baseline inflation expectations are right-skewed, and that consumers in the high-expectation right tail are relatively under-informed about objective inflation-relevant facts. As a result of information provision, however, the distribution of inflation expectations converges toward its center and cross-sectional disagreement declines. We also document heterogeneous information-processing by gender, and present suggestive evidence of respondents forecasting under asymmetric