A rise in the “cost of money” explains why US consumers are so unhappy, despite low unemployment and falling inflation, new research finds.

Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers and co-authors Marijn Bolhuis, Judd Cramer and Karl Oskar Schulz say there is a “disconnect in inflation measurement”. The headline inflation indexes that central banks use typically do not include the cost of credit, despite this being a major reason for households facing rising bills.

In their working paper