Disagreements in Consumer Inflation Expectations: Empirical Evidence for a Latin American Economy

Juan Camilo Anzoátegui-Zapata () and Juan Camilo Galvis-Ciro ()
Additional contact information
Juan Camilo Anzoátegui-Zapata: Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana
Juan Camilo Galvis-Ciro: Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Juan Camilo Anzoátegui Zapata and Juan Camilo Galvis Ciro, Sr. ()

Journal of Business Cycle Research, 2020, vol. 16, issue 2, No 3, 99-122

Abstract: Abstract In this study, the Internet is considered an important source of information used by consumers to form inflation expectations. Based on this idea, this study investigates the effects of word searches related to the central bank, market basket, and living cost on disagreements in consumer expectations. The case of Colombia is analyzed because it is a small emerging economy under inflation targeting policy that conducts surveys to monitor consumer expectations. The methodology consists of using search volume indices on the Google Trends platform to identify effects on expectation disagreement. The econometric results of this study show that information found by consumers on Google can reduce disagreements in inflation expectations. Consequently, the main policy recommendation is that the Central Bank of Colombia should augment the communication it provides to the public through various digital platforms, as a method to anchor expectations.

Keywords: Disagreements; Inflation expectations; Communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E37 E58 E61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41549-020-00047-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jbuscr:v:16:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s41549-020-00047-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nomics/journal/41549

DOI: 10.1007/s41549-020-00047-x

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Cycle Research is currently edited by Michael Graff

More articles in Journal of Business Cycle Research from Springer, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().