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When people are asked what the inflation rate is, apparently your gender is an important factor. Caroline Baum has the 411:

“That men and women occasionally see things differently is not a remarkable observation,” says Michael Bryan, economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. “But that the sexes could report vastly different perspectives on the rate at which prices are rising over a long period of time is astonishing.”

Bryan has studied decades of data on this battle of the sexes, using the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, a joint survey conducted by the Cleveland Fed and Ohio State University among others. He found that demographics played a role in determining the public's estimates and predictions of inflation.

Those who are rich, married, white and middle-aged have lower inflation perceptions and expectations than those who are poor, single, non-white and young. That seems almost intuitive: Society's “haves” are better positioned to endure cost-of- living increases than the “have-nots.”

New View

Yet even after holding income, age, education, race and marital status constant, "men and women hold very different views on the rate at which prices are changing." Bryan writes in a November 2001 commentary, “The Curiously Different Inflation Perspectives of Men and Women.” Women consistently think inflation is 1.9 percentage points higher than men, and they expect prices to rise 2.1 percentage points more than men.

Baum recommends that Bernanke should go to Tupperware parties. But how does she know he doesn't?

Posted by edelfenbein at November 16, 2007 10:46 AM