ACCORDING TO GFK ’ S AND SCB ’ S SURVEYS PER CENT AND PERCENTAGE POINTS GfK SCB Difference

From the late 1970s up to the end of 2001, households’ perspectives on current and future price developments were surveyed by Statistics Sweden (SCB, the Swedish acronym). As of 2002 the survey has been taken over by Growth from Knowledge (GfK), an international market research company. Before the changeover, in November and December 2001, GfK undertook surveys alongside SCB’s regular surveys. Despite nearly identical questions, the average inflation perceptions and expectations were considerably higher according to GfK. Our examination of the responses shows that a part of the discrepancies is due to different ways of handling responses implying that prices were “about the same”: GfK probed such responders to be more precise. Moreover, GfK picked up a greater proportion of low-income households, with higher inflation perceptions and expectations. These two factors account for up to a third of the discrepancy between SCB’s and GfK’s results. The remaining discrepancy comes mainly from GfK’s surveys having more responders who believe in virtual price stability, that is, unchanged prices.