Inflation expectations

Inflation expectations are key inputs into monetary policy, but they also represent one of the most difficult variables to measure. Inflation expectations are particularly difficult to pin down in a low inflation environment in which important relative prices experience large changes. The available measures of inflation expectations differ widely across different sources and could be used at most as an additional element in monetary policy decisions, but not as a target.
This paper was provided by the Policy Departmentfor Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies at the request of the committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) ahead of the Monetary Dialogue with the ECB President on 7 February 2022.