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...

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 propose a simple model of expectation formation with three distinct deviations from fully rational expectations. In particular, forecasters’ expectations are sticky, extrapolate the most recent news about the current period, and depend on the lagged consensus forecast about the period being...

We experimentally investigate how price expectations are formed in a large asset market where subjects' only task is to forecast the future price of a risky asset. The realized prices depend on these expectations. We observe small (6 participants) and large markets (about 100 participants). In...

This report compares employment expectations among refugees in Germany in 2016 with their actual employment situation in 2018, using the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany. In 2016, the majority of refugees reported that the probability they would find employment within two years was...

Using a large set of firm-level survey data from the euro area since 2009, we analyse how firms use their information to form expectations on the availability of bank finance. Our results suggest that firms update what otherwise look like adaptive expectations on the basis of the latest...

The great recession (2008) triggered an apparent discrepancy between empirical findings and macroeconomic models based on rational expectations alone. This gap led to a series of recent developments of a behavioral microfoundation of macroeconomics combined with the underlying experimental and...