文/William C. Dudley（纽约联储总裁兼首席执行官）；编译/邵杨楠来源：纽约联储官网
早上好，欢迎来到纽约联储经济新闻简报会。我很高兴有机会今天与您就我们的消费者期望调查进行分享。这是我们在分析当前和未来经济状况时使用的重要信息来源，有助于我们的货币政策决策。和往常一样，我要说的话反映了我自己的观点，不一定是联邦公开市场委员会或联邦储备系统的观点。
为了实现其货币政策目标，美联储依靠大量数据源提供有关最新发展和当前经济状况的信息。大多数这些数据源都是向后看的。也就是说，它们提供有关过去决定和结果的数据。相比之下，我们对经济主体的前瞻性主观预期和意图知之甚少，而经济主体是当前和未来结果的关键决定因素。然而，这些信息对于制定政策和评估其有效性至关重要。我们观察到的宏观经济结果反映了偏好和约束，以及个人消费者和企业的信念。因此，更全面地了解这些结果需要关于经济主体持有的信念和意图的可靠数据，以及它们如何随着时间演变。特别是，消费者的期望影响各种因素，包括支出和储蓄行为，工资动态，工作搜索，住房需求和信贷需求。鉴于它们在确定美国经济活动中的重要性，消费者预期在评估经济前景和相关风险方面具有特别的价值。
在过去十年中，我们投入了大量资源来改善家庭经济预期的衡量。这项工作最终在2013年创建了“消费者期望调查”（SCE）。在我们的调查中收集的期望数据使我们直接了解家庭的决策和消费者的财务和经济前景。虽然我们监测对一些主题的期望，但特别重要的是家庭的中期通货膨胀预期。有可靠的通货膨胀预期措施对于评估货币政策和中央银行通信的有效性至关重要。这种评估的重点是分析长期通货膨胀预期的保持程度，以及更多地了解代理如何更新和修改他们对新信息的期望。SCE允许我们进行这种分析。
除了明显的政策相关性，SCE数据也是研究的重要价值。我们的经济学家已经表明，SCE的期望数据是信息和预测受访者的当前和未来的行为。他们还记录了人口统计群体期望的形成和更新的实质性异质性。为了便于进一步研究，我们在我们网站的“微观经济数据中心”部分提供调查数据。每个月，我们还通过易于使用的交互式图表来说明我们的预期系列的趋势。此外，我们的许多自由街经济博客文章描述了我们进行的数据和分析。我们这样做是因为我们希望研究人员，政策制定者，评论员和公众了解数据并遵循我们的更新。
让我现在更详细地描述我们的消费者期望调查。
消费者期望调查
经过广泛的设计和测试，我们于2013年6月推出了“消费者期望调查”。调查具有一些创新和独特的功能，其中三个我今天要强调。首先，正如我前面提到的，它收集了家庭对各种经济结果和行为的主观期望和意图。除了短期和中期通货膨胀预期外，它还收集关于住房，劳动力和信贷市场的家庭预期以及家庭的财务状况和许多其他感兴趣的宏观经济变量的数据。例如，调查引出了关于未来工资增长，房价升值，求职和劳动力市场过渡，家庭支出和收入增长以及信贷应用的信念。通过收集广泛期望的数据，可以分析它们如何相互作用并共同影响家庭的决定。我们还研究预期如何随人口统计和其他家庭特征而变化。
SCE的广泛范围使我们能够研究许多与经济政策相关的问题，例如了解住房市场决策，解决供应的信贷需求，分析工作搜索行为，以及在人们在工作之间转换时衡量工资增长。此外，调查已用于帮助回答其他与政策相关的问题，因为他们在我们的讨论中提出。两个例子是家庭对2014年初天然气价格下降的支出反应，以及家庭早期的经验和“平价医疗法”颁布后的认识。一些分析依赖于我们的调查的能力，阐明消费者是否期望经济条件的具体变化是暂时的或永久的。
调查的第二个重要特征是，除了简单的点预测，对于一些变量，如通货膨胀，我们通过要求他们给未来结果的各种范围分配概率，得到受访者的整个预测分布。这些所谓的密度预测反过来使我们能够通过观察其主观分布的差异来衡量家庭对未来事件的不确定性。密度预测还允许我们监测受访者对特定事件（例如通货紧缩或收入大幅增长）的感知可能性。
SCE的第三个重要特性是它是一个旋转面板。每月约1,300户户主参加我们的调查。这是一个全国代表性的样本。受访者在面板上保持长达12个月，每月有固定比例进入和轮流退出。这使我们能够随着时间的推移监测同一受访者的期望，这提供了重要的好处。首先，它让我们更有信心，我们的标题数字的月份变化反映了信念的真实变化，而不仅仅是样本构成的变化。第二，观察同一个人的反复反应，使我们能够检查预期是如何形成和随着时间的推移而修订的。第三，通过随着时间的推移跟随同样的人，我们能够研究期望如何与这些受访者的同期和未来经济决策和结果相关。
今天，SCE团队将提供有关调查的进一步背景，讨论10月份最新发布的调查结果以及其一些主要指标的最新趋势。然后，小组将介绍SCE的两个特殊组成部分的结果：一个涵盖住户的信用经验和期望，另一个涉及劳动力市场行为和期望。在我向各位同事转达这项意见之前，我想简略评论这两项特别调查。
信贷准入的新发现
SCE信用访问调查补充了在联邦储备委员会高级贷款官员银行贷款实践调查中收集的信息，也称为SLOOS。 SLOOS是银行认为和报告的信用标准和信贷需求信息的主要来源。相比之下，SCE信用访问调查以2013年10月以来的四个月频率进行，衡量家庭感知的信用市场经验。这两个数据源的结合提供了家庭信贷获取和需求的更全面的图像。今天，我们发布了2016年10月的调查结果，并从调查中引入了新的数据。
分包商的一个独特特征是其潜在信贷需求的度量——即，不导致信贷申请的需求。我们测量这种潜在信贷需求，作为报告说，虽然需要信用，但他们不适用，因为他们预期他们的申请被拒绝的家庭的比例。除了目前的信用经验，我们还引出了家庭对他们未来信用申请的期望以及这些申请被批准的可能性。正如我们稍后将要展示的，调查提供了有用的洞察，了解家庭中满足和未满足的信贷需求的程度和变化。此外，我们的分析表明，报告的预期确实预示了四个月后报告的信贷结果。
就业搜索的新发现
虽然SCE信用访问调查允许我们跟踪信用市场的经验和期望，SCE劳动力市场调查收集关于就业和失业受访者的求职行为和期望的信息。有关收入，就业和劳动力市场转型的总体劳动力市场统计数据很容易获得，但对于劳动力市场参与者的期望和搜索行为以及这些参与者随时间的变化情况了解甚少。我们的SCE劳动力市场调查收集了关于受访者的实际和预期工资报价的丰富信息，以及他们预定工资，他们表示他们会接受新工作的最低工资。我们还引出了对未来劳动力市场转型的期望，例如与同一雇主保持联系，转换雇主，找工作或被解雇的可能性。
随着时间的推移，对这些问题的反应的变化可以揭示工人的期望如何变化，以及这些变化如何与总收入和就业动态中观察到的趋势相关。我们对数据的初步分析表明，这些预期措施可预测受访者随后的劳动力市场结果。在未来几年，随着我们为调查产生更长的时间序列，我们将能够探索我们收集的期望是否可以用于构建就业市场的领先指标。
附英文原文：
Good morning, and welcome to the New York Fed’s Economic Press Briefing. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you today about our Survey of Consumer Expectations. This is an important source of information that we use in our analysis of current and future economic conditions to help inform our monetary policy decisions. As always, what I have to say reflects my own views and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve System.
In pursuing its monetary policy objectives, the Federal Reserve relies on a large number of data sources that provide information about recent developments and the current state of the economy. Most of these data sources are backward looking. That is, they provide data about past decisions and outcomes. In contrast, we know relatively little about the forward-looking subjective expectations and intentions of economic agents, which are a key determinant of current and future outcomes. This information, though, is essential for formulating policy and evaluating its effectiveness. The macroeconomic outcomes we observe reflect preferences and constraints, as well as beliefs of individual consumers and firms. Therefore, a fuller understanding of such outcomes requires reliable data on the beliefs and intentions held by economic agents and how they evolve over time. In particular, consumer expectations influence a variety of considerations, including spending and saving behavior, wage dynamics, job search, housing demand and the demand for credit. Given their importance in determining U.S. economic activity, consumer expectations are of particular value in assessing the economic outlook and the related risks.
Over the last decade, we have devoted significant resources to improving the measurement of the economic expectations of households. This work culminated in the creation of the Survey of Consumer Expectations, or SCE, in 2013. The expectations data collected in our survey give us direct insight into households’ decision-making and consumers’ financial and economic outlooks. While we monitor expectations on a number of topics, of particular importance are households’ medium-term inflation expectations. Having reliable measures of inflation expectations is crucial to assess the effectiveness of monetary policy and central bank communications. Such an assessment focuses on analyzing the extent to which longer-run inflation expectations remain well-anchored, and on learning more about how agents update and revise their expectations in response to new information. The SCE allows us to carry out this sort of analysis.
Besides their obvious policy relevance, the SCE data are also highly valuable for research. Our economists have shown that the SCE’s expectations data are informative and predictive of respondents’ current and future behavior. They have also documented the substantial heterogeneity in the formation and updating of expectations across demographic groups. To facilitate further research, we make the survey data available in the Center for Microeconomic Data section of our website. Each month we also illustrate the trends in our expectations series through easy-to-use, interactive charts. Further, a number of our Liberty Street Economics blog posts describe the data and the analysis we have conducted. We do this because we want researchers, policymakers, commentators and the general public to understand the data and to follow our updates.
Let me now describe our Survey of Consumer Expectations in more detail.
The Survey of Consumer Expectations
Following extensive design and testing, we launched the Survey of Consumer Expectations in June 2013. The survey has a number of innovative and unique features, three of which I would like to highlight today. First and foremost, as I mentioned earlier, it collects households’ subjective expectations and intentions on a wide range of economic outcomes and behaviors. In addition to short- and medium-term inflation expectations, it collects data on households’ expectations regarding the housing, labor and credit markets, as well as households’ financial situations and a host of other macroeconomic variables of interest. For example, the survey elicits beliefs about future wage growth, house price appreciation, job search and labor market transitions, households’ spending and income growth, and credit applications. By collecting data on a broad range of expectations, it is possible to analyze how they interact with each other and jointly influence households’ decisions. We also study how expectations vary with demographics and other household characteristics.
The broad scope of the SCE allows us to study many questions relevant to economic policy—such as understanding housing market decisions, disentangling credit demand from supply, analyzing job search behavior and measuring wage growth as people transition between jobs. In addition, the survey has been used to help answer other policy-relevant questions as they have come up in our discussions. Two examples are households’ spending response to the decrease in gas prices in early 2014, and households’ early experiences and perceptions of the Affordable Care Act following its enactment. Some of this analysis relies on the ability of our survey to shed light on whether consumers expect a specific change in economic conditions to be temporary or permanent.
A second important feature of the survey is that—in addition to simple point forecasts—for some variables, such as inflation, we get respondents’ entire forecast distributions by asking them to assign probabilities to various ranges of future outcomes. These so-called density forecasts in turn allow us to measure households’ uncertainty about future events by looking at the spread in their subjective distributions. Density forecasts also allow us to monitor the perceived likelihood that respondents assign to specific events, such as deflation or a large increase in earnings.
A third important characteristic of the SCE is that it is a rotating panel. Each month about 1,300 household heads participate in our survey. This is a nationally representative sample. Respondents remain on the panel for up to 12 months, with a constant fraction entering and rotating out each month. This allows us to monitor the expectations of the same respondents over time, which provides important benefits. First, it gives us greater confidence that month-to-month changes in our headline numbers reflect true changes in beliefs, and not just changes in the sample composition. Second, observing repeated responses by the same individuals allows us to examine how expectations are formed and revised over time. Third, by following the same people over time, we are able to study how expectations are related to contemporaneous and future economic decisions and outcomes for these respondents.
Today the SCE team will provide further background about the survey, discuss newly released findings for October and recent trends in some of its main indicators. The team will then present findings from two special components of the SCE: one that covers households’ credit experiences and expectations, and one that deals with labor market behavior and expectations. Before I pass this on to my colleagues, I would like to comment briefly on these two special surveys.
New findings on Credit Access
The SCE Credit Access Survey supplements the information collected in the Federal Reserve Board’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices, also known as SLOOS. The SLOOS is a primary source of information on credit standards and credit demand as perceived and reported by banks. In contrast, the SCE Credit Access Survey, which has been conducted at a four-month frequency since October 2013, measures experiences in credit markets as perceived by households. The combination of the two data sources provides a more complete picture of household credit access and demand. Today, we are releasing the October 2016 findings as well as introducing new data from the survey.
A unique feature of the SCE is its measure of latent credit demand—that is, demand that does not lead to an application for credit. We measure this latent credit demand as the proportion of households who report that, while needing credit, they did not apply because they expected their application to be rejected. In addition to current credit experiences, we also elicit households’ expectations of their future credit applications and the likelihood of these applications being approved. As we will show later, the survey provides useful insights into the extent and variation in met and unmet credit needs across households. Moreover, our analysis indicates that reported expectations are indeed predictive of credit outcomes reported four months later.
New Findings on Job Search
While the SCE Credit Access Survey allows us to track credit market experiences and expectations, the SCE Labor Market Survey gathers information on the job search behavior and expectations of employed and unemployed respondents. Aggregate labor market statistics on earnings, employment and labor market transitions are readily available, yet relatively little is known about the expectations and search behaviors of labor market participants and how these change over time. Our SCE Labor Market Survey collects rich information on respondents’ actual and expected wage offers, as well as their reservation wage, which is the lowest wage or salary they say they would accept for a new job. We also elicit expectations about future labor market transitions, such as the likelihood of staying with the same employer, switching employers, finding a job or being laid off.
Over time, changes in responses to these questions can shed light on how workers’ expectations evolve, and how these changes relate to observed trends in aggregate earnings and employment dynamics. Our preliminary analyses of the data suggest that these expectations measures are predictive of respondents’ subsequent labor market outcomes. In coming years, as we generate a longer time series for the survey, we will be able to explore whether the expectations we collect can be used to construct leading indicators of the job market.
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