Direct Elicitation of Parametric Belief Distributions: An application to inflation expectations
提出一种两步法直接引出beta信念分布，并在美国代表性样本中用于测量通胀预期，发现该方法比纽约联储的“分箱法”更易用、更准确，且得出的分布与点预测相关性更强。
We introduce a novel method to elicit belief distributions and apply it to elicit inflation expectations in a representative US sample through a pre-registered survey experiment. Our approach elicits beta belief distributions directly in a two-step process. First, participants specify their minimum and maximum inflation. They then use a graphical interface with two sliders to adjust the mean and variance of their inflation belief distribution. We benchmark our method against the “Bins” method, popularized by the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE). Our findings reveal significant variations in elicited belief distributions depending on the method used. Specifically, our approach yields higher mean inflation estimates and substantially reduces the standard deviations of the distributions. Respondents report that our method is easier to use and more engaging. Furthermore, the resulting distributions more accurately reflect participants’ beliefs across several dimensions and show stronger correlations with their point predictions.