This paper focusses on survey expectations and discusses their uses for testing and modeling of expectations. Alternative models of expectations formation are reviewed and the importance of allowing for heterogeneity of expectations is emphasized. A weak form of the rational expectations...

Traditionally forecasts of macroeconomic aggregates are extracted from prospective qualitative survey data by relating official data on the aggregate to both the proportion of survey respondents who are 'optimists' and the proportion who are 'pessimists'. But there is no reason to focus on these...

This paper assesses the accuracy of individuals' expectations of their financial circumstances, as reported in the British Household Panel Survey, as predictors of outcomes and identifies what factors influence their reliability. As the data are qualitative bivariate ordered probit models,...

Qualitative business survey data are used widely to provide indicators of economic activity ahead of the publication of official data. Traditional indicators exploit only aggregate survey information, namely the proportions of respondents who report “up” and “down”. This paper examines...

Over the next fifty years, the size and age structure of Europe’s population will experience major changes due to low fertility rates, continuous increases in life expectancy due to medical advances and the retirement of the baby boom generation. The main output of this work package is a model...