• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.45-68
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• 2018

We uncover a nexus between actual inflation, inflation perceptions and expectations in Korea through analyzing micro as well as aggregate data from the Consumer Survey. We document two novel findings. First, households' subjective perceptions of inflation exert more impact on expectation formation than actual inflation. Second, inflation perceptions are broadly in line with the trajectory of the inflation trend. This is attributable to the fact that changes in actual inflation have been generated mainly by the consumption items whose price changes are perceived more sensitively as those items are frequently bought or have a larger share in household expenditures. Conducting a cross-country comparison, we find that information rigidity in expectation formation process and the nexus between perceptions and expectations of inflation prove to be stronger in Korea. Additionally, we reconfirm the existing finding that the scope of information utilized for forming inflation expectations is fairly circumscribed.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.95-120
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• 2014

This paper attempts to demonstrate the critical role of expectation horizons in economic agents building their expectations for the future. It starts with the analysis of what constraints the economics-based assumption related to information efficiency could impose in the stochastic process, and then suggests a new concept, random revision of expectation, to refer to the case when the adjustment process of expected variables employs newly generated information only. According to the inflation dynamics formula drawn under this condition, the demand pressure measured by output gap is found to cause different impacts on inflation according to different expectation horizons. The empirical analysis of this model using the data on Korea reveals that a short expectation horizon causes coefficient estimates to become small and statistically less significant.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.37 no.sup
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• pp.33-63
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• 2015

This paper attempts to investigate the Korean households' inflation expectations with particular attention to information rigidity. For this purpose, we derive an empirical model from a sticky information model $\acute{a}$ la Mankiw and Reis (2002) and estimate it. In addition, it is also examined whether the expectation formation is state-dependent on macroeconomic conditions. The main findings of this paper are as follows. First, it turns out that the information rigidity in Korean households' inflation expectations is very high. In a month, most of the households simply keep their inflation expectations the same as before instead of updating them based on newly arrived information. Furthermore, when updating their expectations, the households tend to rely on the backward-looking information such as actual inflation rates in the past rather than on the forward-looking forecasts by experts. Second, it is found that the expectation formation is varying as inflation rate changes. Specifically, when the inflation is high, the sensitivity of the households' inflation expectations to actual inflation increases and the gap between inflation expectations and actual inflation shrinks. It implies that Korean households update their expectations more frequently when the inflation matters than not.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.81-101
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• 2021

This paper estimates the expectation-augmented Phillips curve, which explains inflation dynamics, in Korea. The phenomenon of low inflation in Korea has been going on for quite some time, in particular since 2012. During the Covid-19 crisis, due to low inflation expectations the operation of monetary policy was limited as the base rate approached the zero lower bound. The main objective of this paper is to estimate where and how tightly inflation expectations are anchored. It was found that long-term inflation expectations fell to around 1%, falling short of the inflation target, and that inflation expectations are strongly anchored to long-term expectations, which implies that the low inflation phenomenon is likely to extend into the future. The results also imply that even if inflation fluctuates due to temporary disturbances, it may converge to a level below the inflation target. The slight rebound of long-term expectations during the Covid-19 crisis suggests that the aggressive monetary policy may have contributed to improving economic agents' beliefs about the commitment of monetary authorities to inflation stability. This may also help long-term expectations gradually to approach the inflation target.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.413-429
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• 2023

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of consumers' inflation expectations using consumers' inflation perceptions and the sub-components of consumer price index (CPI) basket in South Korea based on a consumer survey conducted by the Bank of Korea (BOK). Design/methodology/approach - Using Carroll's (2003) epidemiological model, we analyzed data from January 2013 to January 2023, resulting in a data set of 121 observations for both inflation perceptions and inflation expectations. This study focuses only on aggregate inflation expectations and perceptions because of data availability from the BOK. Findings - Professionals' forecasts play a major role in forming consumers' inflation expectations, whereas the actual headline CPI and consumers' inflation perceptions do not. These results remain robust when including the sub-components of the CPI basket in the analysis. Research implications or Originality - It would be the most efficient way to suppress professionals' expected inflation in fighting against a substantial spike in consumers' inflation expectations. To guide consumers' inflation expectations based on BOK's inflation targeting, the bank needs to consider professionals' forecasts in devising monetary policies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.6 no.8
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• pp.73-79
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• 1983

Industrial management can be achieved in the improvement of productivities and goods qualities, only copy with international competition through technological renovation, This compels the renewal and augment of production equipments, for which more investment has to be projected. Equipment investment, However, has the possibility of assuring the expectation of profit, but the capricious reality of economical situation caused by inflation requires the precedent study of exmining, analyzing and assaying the effect of equipment investment for a long term. The resolution must depend on a technique of what is called engineering economy, which scrutinizes some samples of investment analysis under price fluctuations, which designates through a method of direct calculation that the only less scale of primal investment never bestows wider profit, and recognizes what contribution engineering economy has to the decision making of management.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.1-47
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• 2020

This paper surveys research since the 1990s on the ability of the yield spread and its components (i.e., expectation spread and term premium components) for future economic activity, and also conducts an empirical analysis of their forecasting ability using the yield data of Korean government bonds. This paper's survey, particularly for the US, shows that the yield spread has significant predictive power for some macroeconomic variables, but since the mid-1980s, its predictive power seems to have declined, possibly due to stronger inflation targeting. Next, this paper's empirical analysis using Korean data indicates that the yield spread, and the term premium component in particular, has significant predictive power for industrial production (IP) growth, consumer price index growth, and the IP gap. An out-of-sample analysis shows that the prediction equations are unstable over time, and that in predicting IP growth, the yield spread decomposition makes a significant contribution to the prediction of IP growth.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.635-641
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• 2021

This article analyzes the factors affecting income inequality in Vietnam, with data from 63 provinces and cities collected from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey of the General Statistics Office of Vietnam from 2010 to 2018. The article will firstly build a research model to identify factors affecting income inequality. Then, it uses the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method to evaluate the effect of factors on income inequality in Vietnam. The empirical estimate result shows that, in the period from 2010 to 2018, the factors such as the proportion of the working employees, income per capita, and inflation have positive effects on the Gini coefficient. That is, when these factors increase, there will be negative effects on improving income inequality in Vietnam. Conversely, when the factors such as the proportion of the literate adults, the proportion of the urban population, and population density increase they will have a positive impact on improving income inequality in Vietnam during this period. The estimated coefficients satisfied the sign expectation except the proportion of the literate adults. It means that, in Vietnam, the increase and more equilibrium in educational attainment balance the distribution of income and bring an improvement in income inequality.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.157-177
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• 2010

This study analyzes the effect of fiscal decentralization on economic growth by using each province city's panel data of China from 1985 to 2008. By using Recently developed fiscal decentralization index and autonomy of local government quantified this study finds the following conclusions. The increase of inflation rate affects positive effect on Chinese economy. This is the trade-off relationship with the growth of Chinese economy by the Phillips Curve theory. So this suggests the instability of Chinese economy. The affiliation of WTO of China shows positive effect on Chinese economy. This can be translated as the real evidence about free trade theory of Classical School. Expenditure decentralization in China led to economic growth and revenue decentralization also affected positively although it was not as much as expenditure decentralization's effect. Central tax and local tax negatively influenced economic growth; and differently from our expectation, local government autonomy quantified was not relevant to economic growth.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.105-125
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• 2016

The expansionary monetary policy was practiced after 2001 in Japan to treat the deflation spiral, and reduced only the nominal interest rates and domestic household demand. One of the most serious factors for this failure was the change of private sector's expectancy. This paper has studied the effect of Japanese monetary policy in 21c., with empirical research based on a renewed macroeconomic model and the VAR. The empirical analysis shows that the effect of monetary policy on the national income during 2001.01-2015.03 is weaker than that of 1985.01-1994.04. Money volume has a diminutive effect on the growth of GDP within a short term after 2001. The change in the expectations of the private sectors might have been the cause of ineffectiveness of the expansive monetary policy. Economic agents learned from the past Japanese financial crisis that an expansive monetary policy increased the inflation rate and caused the 'bubbles to burst' afterwards. The VAR analysis says that the effectiveness of monetary policy on the economic depression declined over the past 20 years and the expansion of money volume has no influence on exchange rate and net export. This means that the expansive monetary policy lost its effect on net export and national income steadily. Monetary policy makers have to recognize this fact, and to consider another anti-cycle political instrument, i.e. the fiscal policy with government debt.