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Articles by Colm Bates
Capturing inflation expectations (de‑)anchoring and what survey-based metrics are telling us
Published as part of the ECB Economic Bulletin, Issue 5/2026.
Inside the food basket: what is behind recent food inflation?
Understanding the persistent food inflation in 2025 is important, not least because food price dynamics play a significant role in consumers’ inflation perceptions and short-term inflation expectations. People pay special attention to food price developments because they purchase food frequently, it accounts for a sizeable share of their budgets and there is limited scope for substitution. This means food purchases may disproportionately influence their beliefs about overall inflation.
Real wage catch-up in the euro area
Published as part of the ECB Economic Bulletin, Issue 5/2025. Real wages in the euro area have largely recovered from their decline during the period of high inflation in 2022. Nominal wages have recently risen faster than prices. As a result, real wages, which are measured by deflating nominal wages by cost-of-living indicators, are now approaching levels seen before the inflation surge.
Euro area rent developments: insights from the CES
This box analyses recent developments in the euro area rental market using data from the ECB Consumer Expectations Survey (CES). Rents are a large component of household spending, but their analysis has been somewhat challenging as harmonised data on households’ rent expenditure are not readily available across the euro area. The CES can contribute to filling this data gap as it collects timely information about household spending.
La evolución de los salarios durante y después del período de inflación elevada
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Those who work less worry more: the effect of lower workloads on consumption
Euro area firms hold on to their workforce, despite poor economic conditions. For a significant share of workers this means a lower workload than usual. In turn, many put more money aside as they worry about job security and wages, as the ECB Blog shows. When the economy slows down, so does labour productivity. This link is often attributed to the role of labour utilisation. In good times firms have more work to do, and their employees’ workloads increase.
Wage developments during and after the high inflation period
1 Introduction Wages are key to the assessment of inflation and thus for monetary policy. Inflation both shapes and is shaped by wage developments. Wages represent an input cost to firms. In turn, productivity-adjusted wages affect firms’ price-setting decisions and thus inflationary pressures, while workers base wage claims on current and past inflation and on inflation expectations.
What consumers think is the main driver of recent inflation: changes in perceptions over time
Understanding how consumers perceive drivers of inflation is crucial for interpreting shifts in their inflation expectations, which can significantly influence real economic decisions. The narratives consumers construct to explain inflation play a key role in shaping their expectations, with different drivers – such as wages or profits – implying different degrees of inflation persistence.
Recent developments in wages and the role of wage drift
Monitoring wages is a key element in the ECB’s approach to analysing the inflation outlook. This reflects the prominent role of wages in the dynamics of underlying inflation, in particular in the services component, which has remained persistent. The outlook for further disinflation in the September 2024 ECB staff macroeconomic projections is predicated inter alia on the expectation of moderating wage growth.
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