The purpose of this paper is to use a large data set comprising individual’s responses to survey questions about future economic conditions, unemployment and prices to explore lay people’s models of the economy and specifically their understanding of the relationship between unemployment and...

Richard Curtin has directed the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment surveys for more than four decades. His analyses of recent trends in consumer expectations are regularly covered in the worldwide press. In this book, Curtin presents a new theory of expectations. Whereas conventional...

"Expected outcomes offer no new information. Results that are unexpected challenge orthodox views. While most discrepancies are resolved upon detailed examination, the few that remain have the potential to lead to a new understanding of human behavior. Over the past four decades, I have held a...