This paper provides novel evidence on exchange rate expectations of both chartists and fundamentalists separately. These groups indeed form expectations differently. Chartists change their expectations more often; however, all professionals' expectations vary considerably as they generally...

This paper examines heterogeneity in exchange rate expectations. Whereas agents' heterogeneity is key in modern exchange rate models, evidence on determinants of heterogeneity is weak so far. Our sample, covering expectations from about 300 forecasters over 15 years, shows remarkable time...

This paper presents a theoretical framework analyzing the signalling channel of exchange rate interventions as an informational trigger. We develop an implicit target zone framework with learning in order to model the signalling channel. The theoretical premise of the model is that interventions...

We use realized volatility to study the influence of central bank interventions on the yen/dollar exchange rate. Realized volatility is a technical innovation that allows specifying a system of equations for returns, realized volatility, and interventions without endogeneity bias. We find that...

We develop a model of firm learning in volatile markets with noisy signals and test its predictions using historical German data. Firms' forecasts improve with age. We exploit German Reunification as a natural experiment where firms in the East are treated with ignorance about the distribution...

We reassess the quot;scarringquot; hypothesis by Clark et al. (2001), which states that unemployment experienced in the past reduces a person's current life satisfaction even after the person has become reemployed. Our results suggest that the scar from past unemployment operates via worsened...

Are firms’ expectations systematically too optimistic or too pessimistic? Does it matter? We use micro data from the West German manufacturing subset of the IFO Business Climate Survey to infer quarterly production changes at the firm level and combine them with production expectations over a...

This paper studies how imposing norms on contribution behavior affects individuals' intrinsic motivation. We consider the church levy, which the Catholic Church in Germany collects as a charitable donation, despite the fact that the levy is legally a tax. We design a randomized field experiment...