How do firms form inflation expectations? Empirical evidence from the United States

Inflation expectations of firms affect their micro-decision-making behaviors and therefore impact the macro-economy. Thus, a deep understanding of how firms form inflation expectations benefits the achievement of central bank’s policy objectives on macro-economic sustainability and development. In this paper, we focus on the inflation expectations of firms from surveys. Specifically, the Naïve Expectation, Adaptive Expectation, Rational Expectation, VAR, and Heterogeneous Static Expectation formation models are adopted to test the models being used by firms to form inflation expectations. Empirically, this paper reveals the heterogeneity between the formation mechanisms of households and firms. Then, empirical results reject the rational expectation hypothesis of firms’ inflation expectations, which means that they are not perfectly rational. Finally, we find that the inflation perception is a non-negligible factor in forming firms’ inflation expectations. Therefore, central banks’ monetary policies that aiming to formulate firms’ inflation perceptions can be a useful tool in regulating their inflation expectations, which are expected to benefit the stability of the macro-economy.