Many information structures generate correlated rather than mutually independent signals, the news media being a prime example. This paper shows experimentally that in such contexts many people neglect these correlations in the updating process and treat correlated information as independent. In...

Standard observed characteristics explain only part of the differences between men and women in education choices and labor market trajectories. Using an experiment to derive students' levels of overconfidence, and preferences for competitiveness and risk, this paper investigates whether these...

A large literature in behavioral and social sciences has found that human wellbeing follows a U-shape over age. Some theories have assumed that the U-shape is caused by unmet expectations that are felt painfully in midlife but beneficially abandoned and experienced with less regret during old...

In this paper we explore the degree of anchoring of inflation expectations of consumers by analysing the comovement in short- and long-run expectations. If inflation expectations are firmly anchored, a transitory shock should influence the short-run inflation expectations but not effect long-run...

A frequent feature of information structures is that they generate signals which are not mutually independent, but rather rely on a common set of underlying information. Using a simple experimental design, we show that in such contexts many people neglect correlations in the updating process,...

We investigate the updating behavior of individual consumers regarding their short- and long-run inflation expectations. Utilizing the University of Michigan Survey of Consumer's rotating panel microstructure, we can identify whether individuals adjust their inflation expectations over a period...

This paper argues that stress tests encompassing the entire banking sector (macro stress tests) can be designed to improve welfare. We develop a multi-receiver framework of Bayesian persuasion to show that a banking supervisor can create value when he commits to disclose the stress-testing...

Inflation expectations are often found to depend on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of households, such as age, income and education, however, the reasons for this systematic heterogeneity are not yet fully understood. Since accounting for these expectation differentials could help...

Forming expectations about the future path of the economy and the own business prospects is not costless for a fi rm. Instead, acquiring and processing the relevant macroeconomic information requires valuable resources. One important source of information that provides a coding service is the...

This paper analyses retirement expectations and outcomes using the two waves of the UK Retirement Survey, undertaken in 1988-89 and 1994. We argue that responses to questions on expectations are not straightforward to interpret where individuals are asked to report point expectations. As in the...