Those of professional forecasters do. For a wide range of time series models for the euro area and its member states we find a higher average forecast accuracy of models that incorporate information on inflation expectations from the ECB’s SPF and Consensus Economics compared to their...

Forward guidance operates via the expectations formation process of the agents in the economy. In standard quantitative macroeconomic models, the expectations are unobserved state variables and little scrutiny is devoted to analysing the dynamic behaviour of these expectations. We show that the...

This paper analyzes monetary policy in a model with a potential unanchoring of inflation expectations. The degree of unanchoring is given by how sensitively the public’s long-run inflation expectations respond to inflation surprises. I find that optimal policy moves the interest rate...

In this paper we discuss the role of the cross-sectional heterogeneity of beliefs in the context of understanding and assessing macroeconomic vulnerability. Emphasis lies on the potential of changing levels of disagreement in expectations to influence the propensity of the economy to switch...

Using a new survey of European households, we study how exogenous variation in the macroeconomic uncertainty perceived by households affects their spending decisions. We use randomized information treatments that provide different types of information about the first and/or second moments of...

This paper addresses the estimation of Phillips curve equations for the euro area while employing less stringent assumptions on the functional correspondence between price inflation, inflation expectations and marginal costs. Expectations are not assumed to be an unbiased predictor of actual...

The aim of this study is to assess empirically to what extent the degree of heterogeneity of consumers’ inflation perceptions and expectations is driven by the flow of information related to current and future price developments in the euro area. We conduct the analysis both on an aggregate...

Following Fuhrer and Moore (1995), several authors have proposed alternative mechanisms to 'hardwire' inflation persistence into macroeconomic models, thus making it structural in the sense of Lucas (1976). Drawing on the experience of the European Monetary Union, of inflation-targeting...

This paper analyzes the impact of monetary policy on public debt sustainability through the lens of a general equilibrium model with fiscal limits. We find that the mere possibility of a binding ZLB may have detrimental effects on debt sustainability, as a kink in the Laffer curve induces a...