The Research For The Biases Of American Households’ Gasoline Prices Expectation

This thesis takes advantage of the micro-level survey data of the American consumers’12-month-ahead quantitative oil price change expectation from Michigan Surveys of Consumers(MSC) and the monthly real oil price data, which are averaged by the weekly oil prices available in the U.S. Energy Information Administration website to calculate the consumers’expect oil prices, compares them with the actual oil prices, and analyze the difference between the expect and actual prices. Using the method of Welch’s t test, this paper gets the conclusion that generally speaking, American consumers tend to over estimate the oil price a year ahead, hence we can say that the oil price expectation is biased. In the further research, we use the abundant information provided by the MSC data base and statistical analysis and find that several factors have significant influence in the bias expect prices:(1), the financial condition expectation, when people take a more optimistic future financial condition, they tend to expect a lower biased oil price expectation difference.(2), the willingness to buy a car in one year, when people hold a stronger willing to purchase a vehicle, they tend to expect a lower biased oil price expectation difference.(3), the income structure, those who rank higher in income status tend to expect a lower bias.(4), age, seniors tend to expect a lower bias.(5), education, those who get a college diploma tend to expect a lower bias.(6), sex, female tend to expect a higher bias than men when comes to the oil price.