Inflation and the Consumer.

This article examines the effects of inflation and of transitory changes in income on consumer saving and spending behavior in the United States. To judge from the recent pronouncements of the forecasting fraternity, uncertainty about the behavior of consumers is at the heart of differences in view about macroeconomic policy at the present time. The inability of the economic recovery to gather sufficient force to bite into unemployment rates has been widely attributed to continued hesitancy and caution of consumers as reflected in exceptionally high ratios of personal saving to disposable income. And differences of opinion about the probable vigor or sluggishness of the recovery are due in considerable part to differences in judgments about the probable consumer response to the unfolding economic situation. One of the major sources of uncertainty about consumer reactions concerns the way that price inflation, both expected and realized, influences consumer decisions about spending or saving. This paper attempts to mine survey measures of consumer expectations, attitudes, and plans in an effort to determine their usefulness in predicting and explaining consumer behavior. We ask two questions: First, what is the role of these anticipatory variables in models designed to forecast consumer behavior? Second, what are the economic variables underlying the movement of consumer anticipation?