Inflation Expectations: Firm-Level Experiments

通胀预期：企业层面的实验

• 批准号: 501537268
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Ester Faia, Ph.D.
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Geld und Finanzpolitik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/501537268?language=en
• 关键词: Inflation; Expectations; Firm; Level; Experiments

Firms’ inflation expectations are crucial for understanding the dynamics of inflation, particularly in situation like the post-pandemic economies in which large shocks act as trigger of inflation spirals. Firms set prices, compete in markets and choose inputs that determine their marginal costs. Their inflation expectations enter and affect all of those decisions. We aim at a causal inference of firms’ inflation expectations through a survey experiment. Specifically, we wish to test three possible channels that may affect firms’ inflation expectations. The first is the cost channel. This includes the cost of labour, which is likely to raise in the post-pandemic scenario also due to reduced labour supply, and the ensuing raise in unions' power. On reverse instead automation may help firms reduce the cost of labour, hence tame inflation. The second is linked to the role of competitors, as firms have more flexibility in raising prices in less competitive environments. In turn firms themselves form their inflation expectations based on what their expectations of competitors' pricing strategies. The third is the role of consumers’ demand: firms setting prices, do so by taking demand elasticity as given. Most often they refrain from raising prices when they fear consumers’ antagonism.The survey experiment will be composed of four modules. In the first we will ask questions to see which of the four channels is more prevalent for firms’ expectation formation. In the other three modules we focus specifically on each of the channels. Each module has similar structures: firms’ priors about relevant variables are solicited, information is provided to them randomly (in the form of unions’ requests, competitors’ expectations or consumers’ expectations), following the randomized controlled trial firms’ posterior expectations are solicited.

企业的通胀预期对于理解通胀动态至关重要，特别是在疫情后的经济体中，大规模冲击是通胀螺旋上升的触发因素。企业设定价格，在市场上竞争，并选择决定其边际成本的投入。他们的通胀预期会影响所有这些决定。 我们的目的是通过调查实验的因果推断企业的通货膨胀预期。具体而言，我们希望测试可能影响企业通胀预期的三种可能渠道。第一是成本渠道。这包括劳动力成本，在疫情后的情况下，由于劳动力供应减少，劳动力成本可能会上升，工会的权力也会随之增加。相反，自动化可以帮助企业降低劳动力成本，从而驯服通货膨胀。第二个因素与竞争者的作用有关，因为公司在竞争较弱的环境中提高价格有更大的灵活性。反过来，企业自己也会根据对竞争对手定价策略的预期来形成自己的通胀预期。第三个是消费者需求的作用：企业设定价格时，将需求弹性视为已知。大多数情况下，他们不提高价格，因为他们担心消费者的反对。首先，我们将提出问题，看看四个渠道中的哪一个更普遍的公司的预期形成。在其他三个模块中，我们特别关注每个通道。每个模块都有类似的结构：征求公司关于相关变量的先验知识，随机向他们提供信息（以工会的要求，竞争对手的期望或消费者的期望的形式），在随机对照试验之后，征求公司的后验期望。