June 2003 | N. Gregory Mankiw, Ricardo Reis, Justin Wolfers
This paper examines the substantial disagreement among consumers and professional economists about expected future inflation, which varies over time and is influenced by inflation, the absolute value of the change in inflation, and relative price variability. The authors argue that a satisfactory model of economic dynamics must account for this disagreement. They introduce the "sticky-information" model, where economic agents update their expectations only periodically due to the costs of information processing. This model is shown to broadly match the observed facts, including autocorrelated forecast errors and insufficient sensitivity to recent macroeconomic news. The paper also explores the relationship between disagreement and other macroeconomic variables, finding that it tends to rise with inflation and relative price variability. The sticky-information model is tested and found to robustly generate the observed stylized facts, suggesting that it captures the dynamics of inflation expectations effectively.This paper examines the substantial disagreement among consumers and professional economists about expected future inflation, which varies over time and is influenced by inflation, the absolute value of the change in inflation, and relative price variability. The authors argue that a satisfactory model of economic dynamics must account for this disagreement. They introduce the "sticky-information" model, where economic agents update their expectations only periodically due to the costs of information processing. This model is shown to broadly match the observed facts, including autocorrelated forecast errors and insufficient sensitivity to recent macroeconomic news. The paper also explores the relationship between disagreement and other macroeconomic variables, finding that it tends to rise with inflation and relative price variability. The sticky-information model is tested and found to robustly generate the observed stylized facts, suggesting that it captures the dynamics of inflation expectations effectively.