IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-03096230.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Rationality of Expectations Formation

Author

Listed:
  • Julio Dávila

    (CORE - Center of Operation Research and Econometrics [Louvain] - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain)

Abstract

Rational expectations are not required to follow from beliefs that explain well history, but just to correctly foresee the future. As a consequence, at a rational expectations equilibrium, the agents’ expectations may follow from beliefs that explain poorly the observed history, even among those rationalizing their choices. This paper shows, firstly, that if agents hold rationally formed expectations instead – in the sense of following from beliefs that explain history better than any other beliefs justifying their choices – then allocations unsupported by rational expectations can be shown to be equilibrium outcomes. By means of this result, it is established, secondly, that adding the common knowledge of the rationality of the formation of expectations to that of the rationality of choices and of market clearing, still does not suffice to guarantee rational expectations. Finally, the rationally formed expectations equilibria produced in this paper exhibit a sunspot-like volatility that, interestingly enough, do not rely on an explicit sunspot mechanism.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Julio Dávila, 2016. "The Rationality of Expectations Formation," Post-Print halshs-03096230, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03096230
    DOI: 10.1515/bejte-2014-0082
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Radner, Roy, 1979. "Rational Expectations Equilibrium: Generic Existence and the Information Revealed by Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 655-678, May.
    2. Fujita,Masahisa & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2013. "Economics of Agglomeration," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107001411.
    3. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1986. "Adaptive Behavior and Economic Theory," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 401-426, October.
    4. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    5. Hindriks, Jean & Myles, Gareth D., 2013. "Intermediate Public Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262018691, April.
    6. Barnett,William A. & Geweke,John & Shell,Karl (ed.), 1989. "Economic Complexity: Chaos, Sunspots, Bubbles, and Nonlinearity," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521355636, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Chatterji, Shurojit & Kajii, Atsushi, 2023. "Decentralizability of efficient allocations with heterogeneous forecasts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).

    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. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2017. "Optimal fertility under age-dependent labour productivity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 621-646, April.
    2. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Government policy and the probability of coordination failures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 939-973, May.
    3. Kelly, David L. & Shorish, Jamsheed, 2000. "Stability of Functional Rational Expectations Equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 215-250, December.
    4. Bullard, James & Duffy, John, 1999. "Using Genetic Algorithms to Model the Evolution of Heterogeneous Beliefs," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 13(1), pages 41-60, February.
    5. Godin, M. & Hindriks, J., 2015. "A Review of Critical Issues on Tax Design and Tax Administration in a Global Economy and Developing Countries," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015028, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    6. Julio Dávila, 2008. "The rationality of expectations formation and excess volatility," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne b08019, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    7. Forges, Francoise & Minelli, Enrico & Vohra, Rajiv, 2002. "Incentives and the core of an exchange economy: a survey," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1-2), pages 1-41, September.
    8. Britz, Volker & Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Predtetchinski, Arkadi, 2014. "On the convergence to the Nash bargaining solution for action-dependent bargaining protocols," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 178-183.
    9. Dutta, Jayasri & Morris, Stephen, 1997. "The Revelation of Information and Self-Fulfilling Beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 231-244, March.
    10. Hindriks, Jean & Nishimura, Yukihiro, 2015. "A note on equilibrium leadership in tax competition models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 66-68.
    11. Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2016. "Longevity Variations And The Welfare State," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 207-239, June.
    12. Samuel Ferey & Pierre Dehez, 2016. "Multiple Causation, Apportionment, and the Shapley Value," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(1), pages 143-171.
    13. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2005. "Stable sunspot solutions in models with predetermined variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 601-625, April.
    14. Chevalier, Philippe & Lamas, Alejandro & Lu, Liang & Mlinar, Tanja, 2015. "Revenue management for operations with urgent orders," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(2), pages 476-487.
    15. GRIGIS DE STEFANO, Federico, 2014. "Strategic stability of equilibria: the missing paragraph," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014015, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    16. NESTEROV, Yurii, 2015. "Complexity bounds for primal-dual methods minimizing the model of objective function," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015003, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    17. Cremer Helmuth & Pestieau Pierre, 2018. "Means-Tested Long-Term Care and Family Transfers," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 351-364, August.
    18. Bauwens, Luc & Grigoryeva, Lyudmila & Ortega, Juan-Pablo, 2016. "Estimation and empirical performance of non-scalar dynamic conditional correlation models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 17-36.
    19. François Maniquet & Massimo Morelli, 2015. "Approval quorums dominate participation quorums," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(1), pages 1-27, June.
    20. DECANCQ, Koen & FLEURBAEY, Marc & SCHOKKAERT, Erik, 2014. "Inequality, income, and well-being," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014018, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    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:hal:journl:halshs-03096230. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.