We survey clients of a German online bank to study retail investors' beliefs about the autocorrelation of annual returns of the aggregate stock market, and the role of these beliefs in financial decisions. A majority of our respondents believe in mean reversion of aggregate returns, and these...

We survey retail investors at an online bank to study beliefs about the autocorrelation of aggregate stock returns, and how these beliefs shape investment decisions measured in administrative account data. Individuals' beliefs exhibit substantial heterogeneity and predict trading responses to...

Exploiting the natural experiment of the German reunification, we examine how consumers adapt to a new environment in their macroeconomic forecasting. We document that East Germans expect higher inflation and make larger forecast errors than West Germans even decades after reunification....

Using a representative online panel from the US, we examine how individuals’ macroeconomic expectations causally affect their personal economic prospects and their behavior. To exogenously vary respondents’ expectations we provide them with different professional forecasts about the...

Using a representative online panel from the US, we examine how individuals' macroeconomic expectations causally affect their personal economic prospects and their behavior. To exogenously vary respondents' expectations, we provide them with different professional forecasts about the likelihood...

Exploiting the natural experiment of the German reunification, we examine how consumers adapt to a new environment in their macroeconomic forecasting. We document that East Germans expect higher inflation and make larger forecast errors than West Germans even decades after reunification....

We use data from a German online brokerage and a survey to show that retail investors sharply reduce risk-taking in response to nearby firm bankruptcies, which are not predictive of returns. The e.ects on trading are spatially highly concentrated, immediate and not persistent. They seem to...

We use data from a German online brokerage and a survey to show that retail investors sharply reduce risk-taking in response to nearby firm bankruptcies, which are not predictive of returns. The effects on trading are spatially highly concentrated, immediate and not persistent. They seem to...

In early April 2020 we conducted a survey on a representative sample of more than 8,000 US households to study the effect of the coronavirus crisis on household income and retirement wealth, households' expectations about the recovery, and the impact of the shock on individuals' economic...

We survey a representative sample of US households to study how exposure to the COVID-19 stock market crash affects expectations and planned behavior. Wealth shocks are associated with upward adjustments of expectations about retirement age, desired working hours, and household debt, but have...