Unemployment Expectations and the Business Cycle
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Daniel Louis Tortorice
I compare unemployment expectations from the Michigan Survey of Consumers to VAR forecastable movements in unemployment. I document three key facts: First, one-half to one-third of the population expects unemployment to rise when it is falling at the end of a recession, even though the VAR predicts the fall in unemployment. Second, more people expect unemployment to rise when it is falling at the end of a recession than expect it to rise when it is rising at the beginning of a recession even though the VAR predicts these changes. Finally, the lag change in unemployment is almost as important as the VAR forecast in predicting the fraction of the population that expects unemployment to rise. Professional forecasters do not exhibit these discrepancies. Least squares learning or real time expectations do little to help explain these facts. However, delayed updating of expectations can explain some of these facts, and extrapolative expectations explains these facts best. Individuals with higher income or education are only slightly less likely to have expectations which differ from the VAR, and those whose expect more unemployment when the VAR predicts otherwise are 8-10 percent more likely to believe it is a bad time to make a major purchase.
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Advances Article
- Life Cycle Dynamics of Income Uncertainty and Consumption
- Immigration, Fiscal Policy, and Welfare in an Aging Population
- Contributions Article
- Who Gets the Credit? And Does It Matter? Household vs. Firm Lending Across Countries
- How Much Did the 2009 Australian Fiscal Stimulus Boost Demand? Evidence from Household-Reported Spending Effects
- Economic Growth and Political Survival
- Exchange Rate Uncertainty and Trade
- Monetary and Macroprudential Policy Rules in a Model with House Price Booms
- A Unified Framework for Using Micro-Data to Compare Dynamic Time-Dependent Price-Setting Models
- Government Policy Response to War-Expenditure Shocks
- Poverty Traps and Growth in a Model of Endogenous Time Preference
- Where Has All the Money Gone? Foreign Aid and the Composition of Government Spending
- Great Spending Crashes
- Capital Utilization and the Amplification Mechanism
- Topics Article
- Unemployment Expectations and the Business Cycle
- Sector-Specific Capital, Labor Market Distortions and Cross-Country Income Differences: A Two-Sector General Equilibrium Approach
- A Dynamic Theory of Competence, Loyalty and Stability in Dictatorships
- Coordination Failure in Investment, Economic Growth, and Volatility
- Openness, Imported Commodities and the Sacrifice Ratio
- Consumption, Leisure and Borrowing Constraints
- A Credibility Proxy: Tracking US Monetary Developments
- Estimating Information Rigidity Using Firms' Survey Data
- Has the Fed Reacted Asymmetrically to Stock Prices?
- News Shocks, Productivity and the U.S. Investment Boom-Bust Cycle
- A Supply-Demand Framework for Understanding the U.S. Gender Gap in Education
- Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in Bolivia during the Market Liberalization Period
- Government Debt Dynamics Under Discretion
- The Global Transmission of Government Debt
- Is Discretionary Fiscal Policy in Japan Effective?
- The Laffer Curve in a Frictional Labor Market
- Nonexponential Discounting: A Direct Test And Perhaps A New Puzzle
- International Transmission of Medium-Term Technology Cycles: Evidence from Spain as a Recipient Country
- Phases of Economic Development: Do Initial Endowments Matter?
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Advances Article
- Life Cycle Dynamics of Income Uncertainty and Consumption
- Immigration, Fiscal Policy, and Welfare in an Aging Population
- Contributions Article
- Who Gets the Credit? And Does It Matter? Household vs. Firm Lending Across Countries
- How Much Did the 2009 Australian Fiscal Stimulus Boost Demand? Evidence from Household-Reported Spending Effects
- Economic Growth and Political Survival
- Exchange Rate Uncertainty and Trade
- Monetary and Macroprudential Policy Rules in a Model with House Price Booms
- A Unified Framework for Using Micro-Data to Compare Dynamic Time-Dependent Price-Setting Models
- Government Policy Response to War-Expenditure Shocks
- Poverty Traps and Growth in a Model of Endogenous Time Preference
- Where Has All the Money Gone? Foreign Aid and the Composition of Government Spending
- Great Spending Crashes
- Capital Utilization and the Amplification Mechanism
- Topics Article
- Unemployment Expectations and the Business Cycle
- Sector-Specific Capital, Labor Market Distortions and Cross-Country Income Differences: A Two-Sector General Equilibrium Approach
- A Dynamic Theory of Competence, Loyalty and Stability in Dictatorships
- Coordination Failure in Investment, Economic Growth, and Volatility
- Openness, Imported Commodities and the Sacrifice Ratio
- Consumption, Leisure and Borrowing Constraints
- A Credibility Proxy: Tracking US Monetary Developments
- Estimating Information Rigidity Using Firms' Survey Data
- Has the Fed Reacted Asymmetrically to Stock Prices?
- News Shocks, Productivity and the U.S. Investment Boom-Bust Cycle
- A Supply-Demand Framework for Understanding the U.S. Gender Gap in Education
- Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in Bolivia during the Market Liberalization Period
- Government Debt Dynamics Under Discretion
- The Global Transmission of Government Debt
- Is Discretionary Fiscal Policy in Japan Effective?
- The Laffer Curve in a Frictional Labor Market
- Nonexponential Discounting: A Direct Test And Perhaps A New Puzzle
- International Transmission of Medium-Term Technology Cycles: Evidence from Spain as a Recipient Country
- Phases of Economic Development: Do Initial Endowments Matter?
