Are firms' expectations on the availability of external finance rational, adaptive or regressive?

Purpose: This study investigates which expectation formation mechanism governs Eurozone firms regarding their expectations on external finance availability. Design/methodology/approach: In this study, we link consecutive surveys from the Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises to bring new evidence on how non-financial corporations shape their expectations on external finance availability. Findings: In line with the past literature, we demonstrate that the data reject the Rational Expectations hypothesis, and we find evidence in favor of the Adaptive Expectation mechanism. Originality/value: This is the first study studying firms' expectations of external finance availability, implementing survey data of firms' expectations from the SAFE database on a country level. The formation of firm expectations is vital in directing policymakers in designing appropriate monetary policies, as both the employment and inflation targets of central banks around the world are highly dependent on the firm-level decision process.