Are inflation expectations in financial markets credible?
After falling in the spring of 2020, long-term inflation expectations in financial markets have picked up, more in the United States than in the euro zone. But they remain low, below central banks’ inflation target, especially in the euro zone. In the short term, actual inflation is likely to remain low as the COVID crisis is triggering a rise in unemployment that will take time to absorb, especially since it is associated with a transformation of the economy’s sectoral structure, while also causing companies to seek to restore their profitability by freezing wages. But in the long term, several mechanisms should lead to higher-than-expected inflation: The energy transition and the cost of renewable energies; Onshoring from emerging countries with low labour costs; Population ageing. It is clear that inflation expectations in financial markets do not take into account these structural determinants of inflation in the long term.