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Quarterly Journal of Economics 2026

Attention to the Macroeconomy

Sebastian Link1; Andreas Peichl2; Oliver Pfäuti3; Christopher Roth4; Johannes Wohlfart5

1 Institute, LMU Munich, IZA@LISER, CESifo · 2 LMU Munich, ifo Institute · 3 University of Texas at Austin · 4 University of Cologne, ECONtribute, CESifo, CEPR, Max-Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics Bonn · 5 University of Cologne, ECONtribute, Max-Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics, CEBI, CESifo

open access

Abstract

We measure which economic topics are top of mind using quarterly German household and firm panels from 2020 to 2024, a period that spans the post-pandemic inflation surge and the subsequent disinflation. With these data, we study potential determinants and consequences of having inflation top of mind. In line with goal-directed attention, the likelihood that inflation is top of mind rises with proxies for its true payoff relevance. At the same time, prior experiences predict whether respondents have inflation and energy prices top of mind conditional on a large set of controls for payoff relevance, and this relationship strengthens when the environment becomes more inflationary. Having inflation top of mind predicts stronger increases in information acquisition and inflation expectations over the shock period. At odds with goal-optimality, having inflation top of mind is associated with expectations further away from multiple ex-ante benchmarks. Finally, both key determinants of having inflation top of mind—payoff relevance and prior experiences—are associated with stronger shifts of expectations away from these benchmarks over the shock period.

DOI
10.1093/qje/qjag047
Language
en
Sources
crossref openalex

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