Heterogenität makroökonomischer Erwartungen: Welche Rolle spielen individuelle historische Erfahrungen, das örtliche Umfeld und sozioökonomische Faktoren?
Third party funded individual grant
Start date : 01.07.2019
End date : 30.06.2022
Extension date: 31.12.2022
Project details
Scientific Abstract
Expectations are at the heart of modern macroeconomic theory. The commonly made assumptions of full information rational expectations (Muth, 1961) or its recently proposed variants with information rigidities are simplistic and do not allow for genuine heterogeneity of expectations. In particular, they do not allow individual experiences of households or firms to affect their expectations of aggregate macroeconomic variables. Similarly, the role of individual experiences in the formation of financial expectations and decision making is not yet well understood. This research project will provide empirical analyses based on survey data to enhance our understanding of how individual experiences of private households or firms influence their expectations. This evidence will help relaxing the commonly made assumption in economic models that expectations are formed by a process that is invariant across time and individuals. The results of this research project will be useful for both academic economists and researchers from other disciplines that investigate expectation formation processes as well as for monetary policy makers. The project contributes to the ongoing quest in macroeconomics for a better understanding of the relevance of heterogeneity, in particular of expectations, across households and firms. Overall, the project will lead to a better understanding of survey data on macroeconomic expectations and, thus, will help to properly interpret such surveys. All of these issues are of first-order importance for the conduct of monetary policy because modern central banking relies heavily on expectations, both as a source of information and as a tool to steer the economy.
