Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Nikola Mirkov
Author-Name-First: Nikola
Author-Name-Last: Mirkov
Author-Person: pmi597
Author-Name: Andreas Steinhauer
Author-Name-First: Andreas
Author-Name-Last: Steinhauer
Author-Person: pst626
Title: Ben Bernanke vs. Janet Yellen: Exploring the (a)symmetry of individual and aggregate inflation expectations
Abstract: We conducted a simple, anonymous survey at the beginning of 2014, asking around 200 economists worldwide to reveal their inflation expectations, conditional on either Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen being the chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. We use the change in the Fed's leadership to focus attention on the difference in conditional expectations, while we are interested in the distribution of those expectations. The outcome of the survey shows that a significant share of respondents revealed asymmetric inflation expectations and that the deviation from symmetry is sizeable. Nonetheless, individual asymmetry in forecasts appears to be irrelevant for the aggregate distribution, as the number of respondents who factor in excess inflation broadly matches the number of those who gave more weight to disinflationary outcomes. The aggregate distribution we obtain is largely comparable to the outcome of the Survey of Professional Forecasters for the first quarter of 2014.
Length: 22 pages
Creation-Date: 2015
Contact-Email: forschung@snb.ch
File-URL: https://www.snb.ch/en/publications/research/working-papers/2015/working_paper_2015_10
File-Format: text/html
Number: 2015-10
Classification-JEL: C42, E31
Keywords: inflation expectations, subjective probability distributions
Handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2015-10