Investors' return expectations are pivotal in stock markets, but the reasoning behind these expectations remains a black box for economists. This paper sheds light on economic agents' mental models - their subjective understanding - of the stock market, drawing on surveys with the US general...

Investors' return expectations are pivotal in stock markets, but the reasoning behind these expectations remains a black box for economists. This paper sheds light on economic agents' mental models - their subjective understanding - of the stock market, drawing on surveys with the US general...

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 review methodological questions relevant for the design of information provision experiments. We first provide a literature review of major areas in which information provision experiments are applied. We then outline key measurement challenges and design recommendations that may be of help...

We conduct an experiment with a representative sample from the US to study households' demand for macroeconomic information. Respondents who learn of a higher personal exposure to unemployment risk during recessions increase their demand for an expert forecast about the likelihood of a...

We leverage survey data from Germany, Italy, and the US to document several novel stylized facts about the extent of information frictions among firms and households. First, firms’ expectations about the central bank policy rate, inflation, and aggregate unemployment are more aligned with...

We provide evidence on the stories that people tell to explain a historically notable rise in inflation using samples of experts, U.S. households, and managers. We document substantial heterogeneity in narratives about the drivers of higher inflation rates. Experts put more emphasis on...

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...

We leverage the small open economy Switzerland as a testing ground for basic premises of macroeconomic models of endogenous information acquisition, using tailored surveys of firms and households. First, we show that firms perceive a greater exposure to exchange rate movements than households,...

We survey samples of German firms and households to document novel stylized facts about the extent of information frictions among the two groups. First, firms' expectations about macroeconomic variables are closer to expert forecasts and less dispersed than households', consistent with higher...