This paper examines whether biased income expectations due to overconfidence lead to higher levels of debt-taking. In a lab experiment, participants can purchase goods by borrowing against their future income. We exogenously manipulate income expectations by letting income depend on relative...

We examine the additivity of stock-market expectations over different time intervals. When asked about a ten-year interval, survey respondents expect a stock-price change that is not equal to, but closer to zero than, the sum of their expectations over two shorter time intervals that cover the...

We examine the additivity of stock-market expectations over different time intervals. When asked about a ten-year interval, survey respondents expect a stock-price change that is not equal to, but closer to zero than, the sum of their expectations over two shorter time intervals that cover the...

In this paper we analyze how consumers in Germany updated expectations about inƒaflation in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. We use a fixed effects model to estimate the effect of regional exposure to COVID-19 cases, the stringency of restriction measures and local unemployment rates on...

We study the role of household saving behaviour, of individual motives for saving and that of perceived liquidity constraints in 15 Euro Area countries. The empirical analysis is based on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, a new harmonized data set collecting detailed information on...

We examine the financial resilience of Austrian households, relating it to their experience of financial shocks earlier in life and to their financial literacy. We find that previous negative (positive) financial shocks are negatively (positively) related to financial resilience. Financial...

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we present an up-to-date assessment of the differences across euro area countries in the distributions of various measures of debt conditional on household characteristics. We consider three different outcomes: the probability of holding debt, the amount...

While recent literature has pointed out that migrants ́remittances have a positive impact on savings with financial institutions, findings with respect to access to and the use of loans have been ambiguous. This paper investigates whether the reception of remittances facilitates taking up loans...

Excessive household borrowing has been identified as an important determinant of financial crises. Borrower-based macroprudential instruments have been proposed as a possible remedy. In Germany, two instruments have been available to macroprudential supervisors since 2017: a cap on the...

In a tedious real effort task, agents can choose to receive information about their piece rate that is either low or ten times higher. One third of subjects deliberately decide to forego this instrumental information, revealing a preference for information avoidance. Strikingly, agents who face...