Inflation at the household level

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Kaplan, Greg; Schulhofer-Wohl, Sam
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Chicago
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.08.002
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 19-38
• 关键词: inflation; Heterogeneity

摘要

We use scanner data to estimate inflation rates at the household level. Households' inflation rates have an annual interquartile range of 6.2-9.0 percentage points. Most of the heterogeneity comes not from variation in broadly defined consumption bundles but from variation in prices paid for the same types of goods. Lower-income households experience higher inflation, but most cross-sectional variation is uncorrelated with observables. Households' deviations from aggregate inflation exhibit only slightly negative serial correlation. Almost all variability in a household's inflation rate comes from variability in household-level prices relative to average prices, not from variability in aggregate inflation. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.