Economics Economists And Expectations

The concept of rational expectations has played a hugely important role in economics over the years. Dealing with the origins and development of modern approaches to expectations in micro and macroeconomics, this book makes use of primary sources and previously unpublished material from such figures as Hicks, Hawtrey and Hart. The accounts of the 'founding fathers' of the models themselves are also presented here for the first time. The authors trace the development of different approaches to expectations from the likes of Hayek, Morgenstern, and Coase right up to more modern theorists such as Friedman, Patinkin, Phelps and Lucas. The startling conclusion that there was no 'Rational Expectations Revolution' is articulated, supported and defended with impressive clarity and authority. A necessity for economists across the world, this book will deserve its place upon many an academic bookshelf.

A crucial challenge for economists is figuring out how people interpret the world and form expectations that will likely influence their economic activity. Inflation, asset prices, exchange rates, investment, and consumption are just some of the economic variables that are largely explained by expectations. Here George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja bring new explanatory power to a variety of expectation formation models by focusing on the learning factor. Whereas the rational expectations paradigm offers the prevailing method to determining expectations, it assumes very theoretical knowledge on the part of economic actors. Evans and Honkapohja contribute to a growing body of research positing that households and firms learn by making forecasts using observed data, updating their forecast rules over time in response to errors. This book is the first systematic development of the new statistical learning approach. Depending on the particular economic structure, the economy may converge to a standard rational-expectations or a "rational bubble" solution, or exhibit persistent learning dynamics. The learning approach also provides tools to assess the importance of new models with expectational indeterminacy, in which expectations are an independent cause of macroeconomic fluctuations. Moreover, learning dynamics provide a theory for the evolution of expectations and selection between alternative equilibria, with implications for business cycles, asset price volatility, and policy. This book provides an authoritative treatment of this emerging field, developing the analytical techniques in detail and using them to synthesize and extend existing research.

This book provides a unique historical perspective on expectations in economic theory, and applications of expectations models in economic history. Based on papers presented at the 2017 Thomas Guggenheim Conference, it brings together the work of economists, historians of economics, and economic historians on issues and events concerning expectations in economics and economic history. The contributions address: (i) the history of expectations models; (ii) growth, expectations and political economy; (iii) controversies regarding expectations methods and models; (iv) expectations in theory and reality; and (v) expectations in economic history. The book opens with a lecture by Thomas Guggenheim Prize winner Duncan Foley on the evolution of expectations in modern economic thought. The remaining content is divided into two parts, the first of which focuses on the utilization of expectations in the “ancient” and “meso” periods of high theory, i.e., from Smithian to Keynesian approaches. The papers cover topics such as “modern” applications of expectations in both “Tobinesque-Phillips” and “Harrodian-Solowian” contexts, and the debate between Friedmanite and Keynesian approaches to expectation formation. In turn, the last part presents essays on the role of economic expectations in connection with historical events and contexts, ranging from the early 20th century to World War II, and on the application of expectations theory to hyperinflation and stabilization, taking Israel as a case study.

This book attempts to elucidate the views of Keynes's General Theory as far as equilibrium, expectations and information are concerned, and compares them with those of modern classical economists of the Chicago and Ricardian persuasion.

This book develops the idea of rational expectations and surveys its use in economics today.

Handbook of Economic Expectations discusses the state-of-the-art in the collection, study and use of expectations data in economics, including the modelling of expectations formation and updating, as well as open questions and directions for future research. The book spans a broad range of fields, approaches and applications using data on subjective expectations that allows us to make progress on fundamental questions around the formation and updating of expectations by economic agents and their information sets. The information included will help us study heterogeneity and potential biases in expectations and analyze impacts on behavior and decision-making under uncertainty. Combines information about the creation of economic expectations and their theories, applications and likely futures Provides a comprehensive summary of economics expectations literature Explores empirical and theoretical dimensions of expectations and their relevance to a wide array of subfields in economics

The major purpose of this work is to make staying up to date with rational expectations (RE) easier for economists in government, academia and industry, as well as for students.