Inflation Expectations and Gender Roles

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Fabian Kindermann
• Subject Area: Economic Theory
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 516656190

Understanding inflation expectations is a key ingredient to understanding economic behavior, both at the macro and at the micro level. In this project, we want to understand the importance of gender roles in shaping inflation expectations of women and men. The research team wants to investigate whether different gender role models shape perceived inflation and how they contribute to the differences in inflation expectations between women and men. A first package uses unique data from the EU Consumer Survey, a large-scale monthly survey run in the entire European Union by the European Commission. In this survey, we will study the formation of inflation expectations in the European Union. To this end, we will exploit exogenous variation created by the introduction of the euro to provide causal estimates for the determinants of individual inflation forecasts. Exploiting the rich micro-economic structure of the data set, we will also be able to speak to how different demographic groups revise their inflation forecasts upon the arrival of new information. Furthermore, we plan to complement the data from the EU Consumer Survey with cross-country data on gender roles. Finally, we will exploit the appointment of two female members on the executive board paired with their nationality to investigate whether this might have enhanced the effectiveness of monetary policy communication and hence better anchored the inflation expectations of women. The second work package aims to create our own customized cross-country surveys of inflation forecasts and the importance of gender roles. We strive to conduct an online survey of individuals in at least 26 countries in different stages of development. The survey should contain questions about an individual's inflation forecasts, the sources of information individuals use when forecasting inflation, questions about the perception of gender roles in their country, an assessment to which degree individuals comply with these norms, information about the actual splitting of traditionally gendered duties within household, as well as standard socio-demographics but also measures of preferences, financial and economic literacy, and cognitive abilities. Moreover, to study the role of differences in inflation expectations for individual well-being, we also plan to elicit individuals' savings and consumption choices, their wage bargaining behavior as well as their financial wealth. With this new dataset, this project will be the first to elicit the importance of gender roles in shaping expectations towards key macro-financial variables and speak to important gender differences in financial decision making.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Italy, USA
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Julia Le Blanc; Professor Michael Weber, Ph.D.