Expenditure, confidence, and Uncertainty: Identifying shocks to consumer confidence using daily data

Arbeitspapier

The importance of consumer confidence in stimulating economic activity is a disputed issue in macroeconomics. Do changes in confidence represent autonomous fluctuations in optimism, independent of information on economic fundamentals, or are they a reflection of economic news? I study this question by using high-frequency microdata on spending and consumer confidence, and I find that consumer confidence contains information relevant to predicting spending, independent from other indicators. The exogenous movements in consumer confidence lead to very short fluctuations in consumer spending, consistent with the hypothesis that more consumer confidence reflects less uncertainty about the future.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Upjohn Institute Working Paper ; No. 13-197

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Macroeconomics: Consumption; Saving; Wealth ; Business Fluctuations; Cycles ; Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
• Subject: Expenditure ; consumer confidence ; vector autoregression

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Lachowska, Marta
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
• (where): Kalamazoo, MI
• (when): 2013

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.17848/wp13-197
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/98593
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET