Learning and Expectations in Macroeconomics

Learning and Expectations in Macroeconomics
Author: George W. Evans
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2012-01-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400824265

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.

Reduced Forms of Rational Expectations Models

Reduced Forms of Rational Expectations Models
Author: L. Broze
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136457801

A comprehensive exposition of rational expectations models is provided here, working up from simple univariate models to more sophisticated multivariate and non-linear models.

Assessing Rational Expectations 2

Assessing Rational Expectations 2
Author: R. Guesnerie
Publisher: Mit Press
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262072588

A theoretical assessment of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis through subjecting a collection of economic models to an "eductive stability" test.

Assessing Rational Expectations 2

Assessing Rational Expectations 2
Author: Roger Guesnerie
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2005-02-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262262903

A theoretical assessment of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis through subjecting a collection of economic models to an "eductive stability" test. The rational expectations hypothesis (REH) dominates economic modeling in areas ranging from monetary theory, macroeconomics, and general equilibrium to finance. In this book, Roger Guesnerie continues the critical analysis of the REH begun in his Assessing Rational Expectations: Sunspot Multiplicity and Economic Fluctuations, which dealt with the questions raised by multiplicity and its implications for a theory of endogenous fluctuations. This second volume emphasizes "eductive" learning: relying on careful reasoning, agents must deduce what other agents guess, a process that differs from the standard evolutionary learning experience in which agents make decisions about the future based on past experiences. A broad "eductive" stability test is proposed that includes common knowledge and results in a unique "rationalizable expectations equilibrium." This test provides the basis for Guesnerie's theoretical assessment of the plausibility of the REH's expectational coordination, emphasizing, for different categories of economic models, conditions for the REH's success or failure. Guesnerie begins by presenting the concepts and methods of the eductive stability analysis in selected partial equilibrium models. He then explores to what extent general equilibrium strategic complementarities interfere with partial equilibrium considerations in the formation of stable expectations. Guesnerie next examines two issues relating to eductive stability in financial market models, speculation and asymmetric price information. The dynamic settings of an infinite horizon model are then taken up, and particular standard and generalized saddle-path solutions are scrutinized. Guesnerie concludes with a review of general questions and some "cautious" remarks on the policy implications of his analysis.

Rational Expectations

Rational Expectations
Author: Michael Carter
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1984-11-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1349176443

Computational Techniques for Modelling Learning in Economics

Computational Techniques for Modelling Learning in Economics
Author: Thomas Brenner
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1461550297

Computational Techniques for Modelling Learning in Economics offers a critical overview of the computational techniques that are frequently used for modelling learning in economics. It is a collection of papers, each of which focuses on a different way of modelling learning, including the techniques of evolutionary algorithms, genetic programming, neural networks, classifier systems, local interaction models, least squares learning, Bayesian learning, boundedly rational models and cognitive learning models. Each paper describes the technique it uses, gives an example of its applications, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the technique. Hence, the book offers some guidance in the field of modelling learning in computation economics. In addition, the material contains state-of-the-art applications of the learning models in economic contexts such as the learning of preference, the study of bidding behaviour, the development of expectations, the analysis of economic growth, the learning in the repeated prisoner's dilemma, and the changes of cognitive models during economic transition. The work even includes innovative ways of modelling learning that are not common in the literature, for example the study of the decomposition of task or the modelling of cognitive learning.

Companion to Contemporary Economic Thought

Companion to Contemporary Economic Thought
Author: Michael Bleaney
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 947
Release: 1992-01-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134973381

* 41 in-depth essays cover current economic theory and applied economics in a single, comprehensive volume * Interfaces section considers economics as it relates to other disciplines * Extensive notes, bibliographies and suggestions for further reading; detailed index of Topics and People `A treasure-house of stimulating argument and vast amounts of, mostly, well marshalled information. The market for general survey volumes, while already crowded, should surely find room for this offering.' - The World Economy `The work under review scores very high marks.' - The Economic Journal `The chapters are written by people who are excellently qualified and frequently well-known in their field ... The book's strengths lie in the range of contributors, the very high quality of most of the contributors and its emphasis on applied economics. For these reasons alone it is an important book, which will be invaluable both to students and to economists wishing to learn about developments in other branches of their discipline.' - Economica