IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2210.10169.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Expectations Formation with Fat-tailed Processes: Evidence from Sales Forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • Eugene Larsen-Hallock
  • Adam Rej
  • David Thesmar

Abstract

We empirically analyze a large sample of firm sales growth expectations. We find that the relationship between forecast errors and lagged revision is non-linear. Forecasters underreact to typical (positive or negative) news about future sales, but overreact to very significant news. To account for this non-linearity, we propose a simple framework, where (1) sales growth dynamics have a fat-tailed high frequency component and (2) forecasters use a simple linear rule. This framework qualitatively fits several additional features of data on sales growth dynamics, forecast errors, and stock returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Eugene Larsen-Hallock & Adam Rej & David Thesmar, 2022. "Expectations Formation with Fat-tailed Processes: Evidence from Sales Forecasts," Papers 2210.10169, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2210.10169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2210.10169
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julian Kozlowski & Laura Veldkamp & Venky Venkateswaran, 2020. "The Tail That Wags the Economy: Beliefs and Persistent Stagnation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(8), pages 2839-2879.
    2. Wyart, Matthieu & Bouchaud, Jean-Philippe, 2003. "Statistical models for company growth," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 326(1), pages 241-255.
    3. Andreas Fuster & Benjamin Hebert & David Laibson, 2012. "Natural Expectations, Macroeconomic Dynamics, and Asset Pricing," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-48.
    4. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2018. "Diagnostic Expectations and Credit Cycles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(1), pages 199-227, February.
    5. Schmidhuber, Christof, 2021. "Trends, reversion, and critical phenomena in financial markets," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 566(C).
    6. Andreas Fuster & David Laibson & Brock Mendel, 2010. "Natural Expectations and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(4), pages 67-84, Fall.
    7. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    8. Giulio Bottazzi & Angelo Secchi, 2006. "Explaining the distribution of firm growth rates," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 235-256, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sigurd Galaasen & Rustam Jamilov & Hélène Rey & Ragnar Juelsrud, 2020. "Granular credit risk," Working Paper 2020/15, Norges Bank.
    2. Cornelia Metzig & Mirta B. Gordon, 2013. "A Model for Scaling in Firms' Size and Growth Rate Distribution," Papers 1304.4311, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2013.
    3. Metzig, Cornelia & Gordon, Mirta B., 2014. "A model for scaling in firms’ size and growth rate distribution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 398(C), pages 264-279.
    4. Born, Benjamin & Enders, Zeno & Müller, Gernot J., 2023. "On FIRE, news, and expectations," Working Papers 42, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    5. Hernan Mondani & Petter Holme & Fredrik Liljeros, 2014. "Fat-Tailed Fluctuations in the Size of Organizations: The Role of Social Influence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-9, July.
    6. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/eo6779thqgm5r489m363974qg is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Gric, Zuzana & Ehrenbergerova, Dominika & Hodula, Martin, 2022. "The power of sentiment: Irrational beliefs of households and consumer loan dynamics," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    8. Hommes, Cars & Zhu, Mei, 2014. "Behavioral learning equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 778-814.
    9. Thomas Brenner & Matthias Duschl, 2018. "Modeling Firm and Market Dynamics: A Flexible Model Reproducing Existing Stylized Facts on Firm Growth," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 745-772, October.
    10. Malmendier, Ulrike & Pouzo, Demian & Vanasco, Victoria, 2020. "Investor experiences and international capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    11. Gualdi, Stanislao & Mandel, Antoine, 2016. "On the emergence of scale-free production networks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 61-77.
    12. Pancrazi, Roberto & Pietrunti, Mario, 2019. "Natural expectations and home equity extraction," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    13. Edward L. Glaeser & Charles G. Nathanson, 2015. "An Extrapolative Model of House Price Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 21037, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Jean-Paul L'Huillier & Sanjay R. Singh & Donghoon Yoo, 2021. "Incorporating Diagnostic Expectations into the New Keynesian Framework," Working Papers 339, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    15. Peter Andrebriq & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples [Rationally Confused: On the Aggregate Implications of Information Provision Policies]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2958-2991.
    16. Caines, Colin & Winkler, Fabian, 2021. "Asset price beliefs and optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 53-67.
    17. Gáti, Laura, 2023. "Monetary policy & anchored expectations—An endogenous gain learning model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(S), pages 37-47.
    18. Briggs, Joseph & Cesarini, David & Lindqvist, Erik & Östling, Robert, 2021. "Windfall gains and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 57-83.
    19. Einar Erlingsson & Simone Alfarano & Marco Raberto & Hlynur Stefánsson, 2013. "On the distributional properties of size, profit and growth of Icelandic firms," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 8(1), pages 57-74, April.
    20. Dew-Becker, Ian & Nathanson, Charles G., 2019. "Directed attention and nonparametric learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 461-496.
    21. Carolin Pflueger & Emil Siriwardane & Adi Sunderam, 2019. "Financial Market Risk Perceptions and the Macroeconomy," NBER Working Papers 26290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2210.10169. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.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.