We study how monetary policy affects inflation uncertainty. Using a survey of Mexican firms and exploiting quasi-random variation in the response date, we estimate the effect of a monetary policy decision and surprise on firms perceived inflation uncertainty. We find that a one percentage point contractionary monetary policy reduces inflation uncertainty by 0.02 percentage points. We explore how this result is affected by levels of higher and lower aggregate uncertainty. We find that monetary policy tightening is twice as effective in reducing inflation uncertainty in periods of higher economic uncertainty, such as trade uncertainty. Our findings highlight the role of monetary policy in reducing inflation uncertainty. We discuss that in periods of uncertainty, monetary authorities face a trade-off between stimulating the economy and increasing uncertainty about the inflation outlook.

We estimate the causal effects of a shift in the expected future exchange rate of a local currency against the US dollar on a representative sample of firms in an open economy. We survey a nationally representative sample of firms and provide the one-year-ahead nominal exchange rate forecast published by the local central bank to a random sub-sample of firm managers. The treatment is effective in shifting exchange rate and inflation expectations and perceptions. These effects are persistent and larger for non-exporting firms. Linking survey responses with administrative census data, we find that the treatment affects the dynamics of export and import quantities and prices at the firm level, with differential effects for exports to destination countries that use the US dollar as their currency. We instrument exchange rate expectations with the variation induced by the treatment and estimate a positive elasticity of a future expected depreciation in import expenditures.

We show that inflation expectations are heterogeneous and depend on past individual experiences. We propose a diagnostic expectations-augmented Kalman filter to represent consumers’ heterogeneous inflation expectations-formation process, where heterogeneity comes from an anchoring-to-the-past mechanism. We estimate the diagnosticity parameter that governs the inflation expectations-formation process and show that the model can replicate systematic differences in inflation expectations across cohorts in the US. We introduce this mechanism into a New Keynesian model and find that heterogeneous expectations anchor aggregate responses to the agents’ memory, making shocks more persistent. Central banks should be more active to prevent agents from remembering current shocks far into the future.

We implement a novel methodology to disentangle two-way causality in inflation and income expectations in a large, nationally representative survey of US consumers. We find a 20 percent passthrough from expected inflation to expected income growth, but no statistically significant effect in the other direction. Passthrough is higher for higher-income individuals and men. Higher inflation expectations increase consumers’ likelihood to search for higherpaying new jobs. In a calibrated search-and-matching model, dampened responses of wages to demand and supply shocks translate into greater output fluctuations. The survey results and model analysis provide a labor market channel for why people dislike inflation.

Motivated by the dominant role of the US dollar, we explore how monetary policy (MP) shocks in the US can affect a small open economy through the expectation channel. We combine data from a panel survey of firms' expectations in Uruguay with granular information about firms' debt position and total imports on a monthly basis. We show that a contractionary MP shock in the US reduces firms' inflation and cost expectations in Uruguay. This result contrasts with the inflationary effect of this shock on the Uruguayan economy, suggesting uncertainty about the policy regime. We discuss the issues and challenges of this expectation channel.

We explore the implications of heterogeneous, history-dependent inflation expectations in a general equilibrium setting. We propose an experience-based expectation-augmented Kalman filter to represent consumers' heterogeneous inflation expectations, where heterogeneity arises from an anchoring-to-the-past mechanism. Using survey data, we show that the model replicates US consumers' inflation expectations and their heterogeneity across cohorts. We introduce this mechanism into a New Keynesian model and find that heterogeneous expectations anchor aggregate responses to the agents' inflation history, producing sluggish expectation dynamics. Central banks should be active to prevent inflationary episodes that agents will remember far into the future.

Using a randomized control trial of approximately 1,000 firm pairs in New Zealand that have a customer-supplier relationship, we provide an information treatment to analyze both the direct effects on expectations and actions of firms receiving this information and the spillover effects on connected firms that did not directly receive information. In a follow-up three months later, we find direct and spillover effects on expectations and actions that are both significant and of comparable magnitude. An increase in expected GDP growth increases prices and employment; an increase in expected GDP uncertainty reduces prices, investment, and employment. We provide evidence that it is communication between the firms, as opposed to observable actions, driving the spillover effect on the expectations of connected firms. This is consequential as we find communication to be symmetric upstream vs downstream, while propagation via actions is asymmetric. We embed firm-to-firm communication along the supply chain in a New Keynesian pricing problem and discuss its implications for the transmission of aggregate uncertainty to firms pricing decisions and aggregate inflation.

Different survey-based measures of consumer inflation expectations have diverged in recent months. This Economic Commentary compares these measures and the survey questions underlying them. Our analysis suggests that the divergences across survey-based measures of inflation expectations can be attributed to various features and sample characteristics specific to each survey.

We study how monetary policy communications associated with increasing the federal funds rate causally affect consumers' inflation expectations in real time. In a large-scale, multi-wave randomized controlled trial (RCT), we find weak evidence that communicating these policy changes lowers consumers' medium-term inflation expectations on average. However, information differs systematically across demographic groups, in terms of ex ante informedness about monetary policy and ex post compliance with the information treatment. Monetary policy communications have a much stronger effect on the subset of consumers who had not previously heard news about monetary policy and who take sufficient time to read the treatment. Our findings show that, in an inflationary environment, these consumers expect that raising interest rates will lower inflation. More generally, our results emphasize the importance of measuring both respondents' information sets and their compliance with treatment when using RCTs in empirical macroeconomics to better understand the real-world implications of monetary policy communications.

We estimate the effects of monetary policy shocks across local areas in the US and find substantial variation in their responses. There is a positive covariance of the price and employment effects of monetary policy across regions, and more sensitive regions are those with low per capita income. These patterns are consistent with New Keynesian models of a monetary union where regions have different shares of handto- mouth consumers. The model predicts that monetary policy shocks create large differences in consumption and real wages across space, and that heterogeneity across local areas amplifies the aggregate responses to shifts in monetary policy rates.

This paper shows how policy announcements can be used to manage expectations. Using regional variation in radio exposure, I evaluate the impact of FDR's 1935 Fireside Chat, in which he showcased the introduction of important social policies, establishing a new expansionary cycle of the New Deal. I document that cities withhigher exposure to the announcement exhibited a significant increase in spending on durable goods. The estimated effect is consistent with changes in expectations in line with the policies announced. This paper shows the power of communication as a policy tool.

Using a novel dataset that integrates inflation expectations with information on social network connections, we show that inflation expectations within one's social network have a positive, causal relationship with individual inflation expectations. This relationship is stronger for groups that share common demographic characteristics such as gender, income, or political affiliation and when salient information disseminates through the network. In a monetary union New-Keynesian model, socially determined inflation expectations induce imperfect risk-sharing and can affect the inflation and real output propagation of local and aggregate shocks. To reduce welfare losses due to socially determined expectations, monetary policy should optimally put more weight on the inflation rate of socially more connected regions.

Flexible exchange rates can facilitate price adjustments that buffer macroeconomic shocks. We test this hypothesis using adjustments to the gold standard during the Great Depression. Using prices at the goods level, we estimate exchange rate pass-through and find gains in competitiveness after a depreciation. Using novel monthly data on city-level economic activity, combined with employment composition and sectoral export data, we show that American exporting cities were significantly affected by changes in bilateral exchange rates. They were negatively impacted when the UK abandoned the gold standard in 1931 and benefited when the US left the gold standard in April 1933. We show that the gold standard deepened the Great Depression, and abandoning it was a key driver of the economic recovery.

Is inflation (still) a global phenomenon? We study the international co-movement of inflation based on a dynamic factor model and in a sample spanning up to 56 countries during the 1960-2023 period. Over the entire period, a first global factor explains approximately 58% of the variation in headline inflation across all countries and over 72% in OECD economies. The explanatory power of global inflation is equally high in a shorter sample spanning the time since 2000. Core inflation is also remarkably global, with 53% of its variation attributable to a first global factor. The explanatory power of a second global factor is lower, except for select emerging economies. Variables such as a broad dollar index, the US federal funds rate, and a measure of commodity prices positively correlate with the first global factor. This global factor is also correlated with US inflation during the 70s, 80s, the GFC, and COVID. However, it lags these variables during the post-COVID period. Country-level integration in global value chains accounts for a significant proportion of the share of both local headline and core inflation dynamics explained by global factors.

Based on indirect utility theory, we ask consumers about the change in their incomes that would be required to offset expected price changes and buy the same amounts of goods and services one year ahead in a large-scale, high-frequency survey of consumers in the US and 14 other countries. Aggregating responses across consumers provides an alternative, indirect measure of inflation expectations compared with conventional, direct measures, but with theoretically lower ex-post forecast errors. The survey responses show that indirect consumer inflation expectations vary based on age, gender, individual inflation experiences, and local shocks. Exploiting rich cross-sectional variation, inflation expectations increase by slightly more in response to gasoline price changes than implied by their expenditure share.