Assessing reliability of aggregated inflation views in the European Commission consumer survey

Abstract

Using a novel approach based on micro-level survey responses, we assess the reliability of aggregated inflation expectations estimates in the European Commission Consumer Survey. We identify the share of consumers, whose qualitative and quantitative views on expected increase of prices do not match each other. Then we consider the impact of inconsistent survey responses on balance statistics and mean values of quantitative inflation expectations. We also analyze expectations’ formation estimating the sticky-information models. The results, based on Finnish and Polish data, suggest that even if the fraction of inconsistent survey responses is non-negligible, it matters neither for the aggregated figures of inflation views, nor for understanding of the formation of inflation expectations by consumers. We conclude that micro-level inconsistencies do not reduce the reliability of the current EC Consumer Survey dataset. Our results also indicate that inconsistent responses are not important drivers of the inflation overestimation bias displayed in the data.