Matt West is a Research Assistant in the Survey and Economic Intelligence Division in the Canadian Economic Analysis Department. His work includes contributing to the quarterly Business Outlook Survey, the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations and the Daily Internet Survey of Confidence. He completed his undergraduate degree at the Saint Francis Xavier University.
Inflation expectations are important to monetary policy decision-makers. Using survey evidence, we examine how firms and consumers react to their inflation expectations during the post-pandemic period of high inflation.
We introduce the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations indicator. 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.
