We analyze a monetary model with flexible labor supply, cash-inadvance constraints, and seigniorageand tax-financed government spending. If the intertemporal elasticity of substitution of labor is greater than one, both determinate and indeterminate steady states exist. If the elasticity is less than one, there is a unique steady state, which can be indeterminate. Only in the latter case do the...

We argue that some but not all superstitions can persist when learning is rational and players are patient, and illustrate our argument with an example inspired by the code of Hammurabi. The code specified an “appeal by surviving in the river” as a way of deciding whether an accusation was true. According to our theory a mechanism that uses superstitions two or more steps off the equilibrium pa...

We show that if policymakers compute the optimal unconstrained interest-rate rule within a Taylor-type class, they may be led to rules that generate indeterminacy and/or instability under learning. This problem is compounded by uncertainty about structural parameters since an optimal rule that is determinate and stable under learning for one calibration may be indeterminate or unstable under le...

We examine the nonlinear one-step forward-looking model, in which the current state is a function of the (subjective) expected value of a nonlinear function of the state next period. Stationary Markov Sunspot Equilibria (SSEs) are known to exist near an indeterminate steady state, i.e. when the derivative of the function at the steady state is bigger than one in absolute value. We show that the...

Expectations play a crucial role in modern macroeconomic models. We consider a New Keynesian framework under rational expectations and under a behavioral model of expectation formation. We show how the economy behaves in the alternative scenarios with a focus on inflation volatility. Contrary to the rational model, the behavioral model predicts that inflation volatility can be lowered if the ce...

This paper investigates the empirical relation between consumer and expert expectations about macroeconomic conditions in Germany. Using data from the EU Consumer Con…dence Survey and the ZEW business expectations, I estimate static models and error-correction models explaining consumer expectations as functions of expert expectations, consumer retrospections, and lagged consumer expectations. ...

We elicit traders' predictions of future price trajectories in repeated experimental markets for a 15-period-lived asset. We find that individuals' beliefs aboutprices are adaptive, and primarily based on past trends in the current and previous markets in which they have participated. Most traders do not anticipate market downturns the first time they participate in a market, and, when experien...

We study how reference dependence and loss aversion motivate highly experienced agents, professional basketball players. We find a very large “losing motivates” effect, an average team scores like a league leader when trailing by ten points and a bottom dweller leading by ten. Detailed data on players’ actions shows this effect comes through differential exertion of effort. Using betting spread...

In the presence of principal-agent problems, published macroeconomic forecasts by professional economists may not measure expectations. Forecasters may use their forecasts in order to manipulate beliefs about their ability. I test a cross-sectional implication of models of reputation and information-revelation. I find that as forecasters become older and more established, they produce more radi...

Information is “market-consistent” if agents only use market prices to infer the underlying states of the economy. This paper applies this concept to a stochastic growth model with incomplete markets and heterogeneous agents. The economy with market-consistent information can never replicate the full information equilibrium, and there are substantial differences in impulse responses to aggregat...