Arbeitspapier
Are subjective distributions in inflation expectations symmetric?
We conducted an anonymous survey in December 2013 asking around 200 economists worldwide to provide an interval (a to b) of average inflation in the US expected "over the next two years". The respondents were also instructed to give a probability of inflation being higher or lower than the mid-interval (a+b)/2. The aggregate distribution of inflation expectations we obtain closely resembles the outcome of the Survey of Professional Forecasters for 1Q2014. More importantly, we find that the subjective probability mass on either side of the mid-interval is not statistically different from 0.5, which means that the subjective distributions are symmetric. Our results align well with several papers evaluating the Survey of Professional Forecasters or similar data sets and finding no significant departures from symmetry.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Working Paper ; No. 173
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Classification Discontinued 2008. See C83.
Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
- Subject
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inflation expectations
subjective probability distributions
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Mirkov, Nikola
Steinhauer, Andreas
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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University of Zurich, Department of Economics
- (where)
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Zurich
- (when)
-
2014
- DOI
-
doi:10.5167/uzh-98628
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Mirkov, Nikola
- Steinhauer, Andreas
- University of Zurich, Department of Economics
Time of origin
- 2014
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