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Inflation at the Household Level

Author

Listed:
  • Sam Schulhofer-Wohl

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis)

  • Greg Kaplan

    (Princeton University)

Abstract
We use scanner data to estimate inflation rates at the household level. Households' inflation rates are remarkably heterogeneous, with an interquartile range of 6.2 to 9.0 percentage points on an annual basis. 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 -- a source of variation that previous research has not measured. The entire distribution of household inflation rates shifts in parallel with aggregate inflation. Deviations from aggregate inflation exhibit only slightly negative serial correlation within each household over time, implying that the difference between a household's price level and the aggregate price level is persistent. The large cross-sectional dispersion and low serial correlation of household-level inflation rates together mean that almost all of the variability in a household's inflation rate over time comes from variability in household-level prices relative to average prices for the same goods, not from variability in the aggregate inflation rate. We provide a characterization of the stochastic process for household inflation that can be used to calibrate models of household decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Sam Schulhofer-Wohl & Greg Kaplan, 2016. "Inflation at the Household Level," 2016 Meeting Papers 529, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed016:529
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

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