Probabilistic job loss expectations elicited in the Consumer Expectations Survey have predictive power for future job loss. We find that an unexpected job loss leads to a negative consumption response, while this e˙ect is muted for workers with ex-ante job loss expectations - consistent with...

Macroeconomic models often invoke consumption "habits" to explain the substantial persistence of macroeconomic consumption growth. But a large literature has found no evidence of habits in the microeconomic datasets that measure the behavior of individual households. We show that the apparent...

This survey discusses behavioral and experimental macroeconomics emphasizing a complex systems perspective. The economy consists of boundedly rational heterogeneous agents who do not fully understand their complex environment and use simple decision heuristics. Central to our survey is the...

This paper analyzes monetary policy in a model with a potential unanchoring of inflation expectations. The degree of unanchoring is given by how sensitively the public’s long-run inflation expectations respond to inflation surprises. I find that optimal policy moves the interest rate...

We study the dynamics of a Lucas-tree model with finitely lived agents who "learn from experience." Individuals update expectations by Bayesian learning based on observations from their own lifetimes. In this model, the stock price exhibits stochastic boom-and-bust fluctuations around the...

Rational expectations has been the dominant way to model expectations, but the literature has quickly moved to a more realistic assumption of boundedly rational learning where agents are assumed to use only a limited set of information to form their expectations. A standard assumption is that...

We study the transmission of (unconventional) monetary policy to the real sector when firm decisions depend on both current and future credit market conditions. For a given level of current credit access, investment and employment increases more at firms expecting bank credit to improve in the...

The aim of this study is to assess empirically to what extent the degree of heterogeneity of consumers’ inflation perceptions and expectations is driven by the flow of information related to current and future price developments in the euro area. We conduct the analysis both on an aggregate...

Recent fiscal policies have aimed to stimulate household spending. In 2008, most households received one-time economic stimulus payments. In 2009, most working households received the Making Work Pay tax credit in the form of reduced withholding; other households, mainly retirees, received...