Optimism, Pessimism, and Short-Term Fluctuations

Economic theory offers several explanations as to why shifting expectations about future economic activity affect current demand. Abstracting from whether changes in expectations originate from swings in beliefs or fundamentals, we test empirically whether more optimistic or pessimistic potential ou...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Di Bella, Gabriel
Other Authors: Grigoli, Francesco
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2018
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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245 0 0 |a Optimism, Pessimism, and Short-Term Fluctuations  |c Gabriel Di Bella, Francesco Grigoli 
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300 |a 31 pages 
651 4 |a United States 
653 |a Wealth 
653 |a Private investment 
653 |a Investment 
653 |a Private consumption 
653 |a Potential output 
653 |a Keynesian 
653 |a Saving 
653 |a Production 
653 |a General Aggregative Models: Keynes 
653 |a Intangible Capital 
653 |a Production; Economic theory 
653 |a National accounts 
653 |a Macroeconomics: Production 
653 |a Cycles 
653 |a Saving and investment 
653 |a Consumption; Economics 
653 |a Investments: General 
653 |a Consumption 
653 |a Post-Keynesian 
653 |a Macroeconomics 
653 |a Macroeconomics: Consumption 
653 |a Business Fluctuations 
653 |a Capacity 
653 |a Capital 
653 |a Production growth 
653 |a Production and Operations Management 
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520 |a Economic theory offers several explanations as to why shifting expectations about future economic activity affect current demand. Abstracting from whether changes in expectations originate from swings in beliefs or fundamentals, we test empirically whether more optimistic or pessimistic potential output forecasts trigger short-term fluctuations in private consumption and investment. Relying on a dataset of actual data and forecasts for 89 countries over the 1990-2022 period, we find that private economic agents learn from different sources of in- formation about future potential output growth, and adjust their current demand accordingly over the two years following the shock in expectations. To provide a theoretical foundation to the empirical analysis, we also propose a simple Keynesian model that highlights the role of expectations about long-term output in determining short-term economic activity