Synthesizing Signals from the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations

We introduce a summary indicator based on the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations (CSCE). This indicator provides a summary measure of consumer opinions that we can track over time. We construct three underlying sub-indexes—financial health, labour market and consumer spending—that capture different factors influencing consumers’ daily lives. We also leverage the rich demographic information available in the CSCE to construct summary indicators for different groups defined by characteristics such as age, home-ownership status and income. We show that there is significant heterogeneity across different demographic groups. This heterogeneity helps us understand how economic shocks disproportionately impact some households. Finally, we investigate which macroeconomic variables drive changes in the CSCE indicator and show that the fundamental drivers vary over time.