Marleau Seminar by Erwan Gautier (Bank of France)
Mar 27, 2026 — 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The Lecture Series enables the Department of Economics at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Social Sciences to host a Symposium on economic policy featuring a Signature academic lecture by a renowned scholar in the field of economics. The fund also supports three graduate research seminars to be hosted by uOttawa’s Department of Economics on an annual basis. Three academics in the field of economic or monetary policy will be invited to campus to share and discuss their most recent research findings with uOttawa researchers, graduate students and other interested individuals. This seminar is the third research seminar for 2025-2026.
Firms’ Inflation and Wage Expectations during the Inflation Surge
Erwan Gautier is Head of the Micro Analysis Unit at the Bank of France and a leading expert on inflation dynamics, price-setting behavior, and monetary policy. His research combines micro data with macroeconomic modeling to shed light on how firms adjust prices and how monetary policy is transmitted to the real economy. He has published widely in international journals and regularly contributes to policy discussions at the Bank of France and within the Eurosystem.
Abstract:
Using a new survey of French firms’ inflation expectations that predates the inflation spike, we document i) evidence on the anchoring of inflation expectations during the inflation surge, and ii) the relevance of inflation expectations for firms’ decisions. First, we show that inflation expectations under-responded to the initial surge but then persistently overshot actual inflation dynamics. As inflation rose, firms initially perceived inflation to be less persistent than in previous years, an effect that dissipated over time. Second, we find that inflation expectations correlate with firms’ wage and price decisions. One-year expectations matter more than long-term expectations. During the inflation surge, wage and price decisions became increasingly disconnected from inflation expectations. This suggests that the scope for wage-price spirals is likely more limited than one might have expected from the surge in inflation and inflation expectations.