Updates to household inflation expectations: Signal or noise?

Using data from the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations, we examine the information content of the updates to household inflation expectations. We find that, although consumers frequently revise their expectations, the adjustments are largely uninformative. •The updates to consumer inflation expectations exhibit negative serial correlation.•The updates cannot be explained by recent changes in the actual inflation rate.•Updates to overall inflation and those of food, gas, etc., have low correlations.•These results are unaffected by the magnitude of the updates.•They are also unaffected by consumers’ education, income, and numeracy level.