In this paper we analyze how consumers in Germany updated expectations about inflation in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. We use a fixed effects model to estimate the effect of regional exposure to COVID-19 cases, the stringency of restriction measures and local unemployment rates on...

This paper documents a strong relationship between households' perceptions about inflation over the past 12 months and households' short- and long-term expectations about future inflation. This relationship is strong during periods of high-inflation but even stronger during low-inflation...

We study the welfare performance of various simple monetary policy rules under bounded rationality (BR) along the lines of Gabaix (2020) in a New Keynesian model with sticky wages and an effective lower bound (ELB) on interest rates. Policy strategies with a strong history dependence lose their...

We examine how private sector agents might learn a new monetary strategy that is adopted while at the ELB. Little can be discovered until the economy improves enough that rates would be near liftoff under the old strategy. Recessionary shocks would thus delay learning while large inflationary...

We study how households adjust their medium-term inflation expectations under the new ECB strategy. We find that survey respondents make little difference between the previous strategy of targeting inflation rates close to but below 2% and the new strategy with a symmetric 2% target. Yet,...

I investigate how households and firms adjust their inflation expectations when experiencing an increase in their energy prices. I use monthly panel survey data in combination with a difference-in-difference approach to show that households increase their inflation expectations when they...

The uncertainty of U.S. core inflation, measured by the stochastic volatility of forecast errors, has soared to a level not seen in nearly five decades since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the global economy. Prices, consumption, and production increase after a positive shock to core inflation...

Heterogeneous-agent New Keynesian models with sticky nominal wages usually assume that wage-setting unions demand the same amount of hours from all households. As a result, unions do not take account of the fact that (i) households are heterogeneous in their willingness to work, and that (ii)...

Current HICP measurement practices produce an upward bias of about one-ninth of a percentage point in German inflation due to changing consumption being disregarded and the preliminary data being used in the compilation of expenditure weights. The statistical uncertainty produced by these...

Based on a new survey of German households, we investigate the role that information channels and lifetime experience play in households' inflation expectations. We show that the types of information channels that households use to inform themselves about monetary policy are closely related to...