IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/anr/reveco/v6y2014p421-443.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Expectations in Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Wagener

    (CeNDEF, Department of Economics and Econometrics, University of Amsterdam, 1018 XE Amsterdam, and Tinbergen Institute, 1082 MS Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The rational expectations hypothesis is one of the cornerstones of current economic theorizing. This review discusses a number of experiments that focus on expectation formation by human subjects in a number of learning-to-forecast experiments and analyzes the implications for the rational expectations hypothesis. In these experiments, most agents are rational in an operational sense, and their expectations coordinate quickly, but not necessarily on the rational expectations value. In several situations, the homogeneous rational expectations hypothesis of Lucas and Prescott poorly describes the expectational dynamics and is outperformed by other hypotheses. But even in those situations in which the hypothesis gives a good description, it is more likely that coordination on rational values is brought about by the institutional structure of the market rather than the rationality of the agents.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Wagener, 2014. "Expectations in Experiments," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 421-443, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:anr:reveco:v:6:y:2014:p:421-443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-economics-080213-040935
    Download Restriction: Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Le Van, Cuong & Navrouzoglou, Paulina & Vailakis, Yiannis, 2019. "On endogenous formation of price expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 436-458.
    2. Tiziana Assenza & Te Bao & Cars Hommes & Domenico Massaro, 2014. "Experiments on Expectations in Macroeconomics and Finance," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Experiments in Macroeconomics, volume 17, pages 11-70, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. Mikhail Anufriev & Cars Hommes & Tomasz Makarewicz, 2019. "Simple Forecasting Heuristics that Make us Smart: Evidence from Different Market Experiments," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(5), pages 1538-1584.
    4. Alan Kirman, 2014. "Is it rational to have rational expectations?," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 13(1), pages 29-48, June.
    5. Hommes, Cars H., 2014. "Behaviorally Rational Expectations and Almost Self-Fulfilling Equilibria," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 1(1-2), pages 75-97, January.
    6. Cars Hommes, 2013. "Reflexivity, expectations feedback and almost self-fulfilling equilibria: economic theory, empirical evidence and laboratory experiments," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 406-419, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    rational expectations; expectation formation; laboratory experiments; human subjects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:anr:reveco:v:6:y:2014:p:421-443. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: http://www.annualreviews.org (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.annualreviews.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.