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Lay people’s models of the economy: A study based on surveys of consumer sentiments

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to use a large data set comprising individual’s responses to survey questions about future economic conditions, unemployment and prices to explore lay people’s models of the economy and specifically their understanding of the relationship between unemployment and economic activity and also between unemployment and prices. The data is taken from the questionnaires used to form monthly indexes of consumer sentiments in Australia. We ask if the implied bivariate relationships are rational in the sense used by Muth (1961) and if they are consistent with the good-begets-good heuristic proposed by Leiser and Aroch (2009). We also ask if they are consistent with the actual operation of economic – and especially monetary – policy in Australia. We find that the data does provide some support for these hypotheses and for recent work in behavioural macroeconomics utilising the good-begets-good heuristic.

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  • R. Dixon & W. Griffiths & G.C. Lim, 2014. "Lay people’s models of the economy: A study based on surveys of consumer sentiments," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1179, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1179
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    File URL: http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/936229/R.Dixon,_W.Griffiths_and_G.C.Lim.pdf
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    1. Ganzach, Yoav, 2000. "Judging Risk and Return of Financial Assets," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 353-370, November.
    2. Caplan, Bryan, 2001. "What Makes People Think Like Economists? Evidence on Economic Cognition from the "Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy."," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 395-426, October.
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    4. Helmut Stix, 2013. "Does the Broad Public Want to Consolidate Public Debt? – The Role of Fairness and of Policy Credibility," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 102-129, February.
    5. Leiser, David & Drori, Shelly, 2005. "NaIve understanding of inflation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 179-198, March.
    6. Ranyard, Rob & Missier, Fabio Del & Bonini, Nicolao & Duxbury, Darren & Summers, Barbara, 2008. "Perceptions and expectations of price changes and inflation: A review and conceptual framework," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 378-400, August.
    7. Williamson, Maureen R. & Wearing, Alexander J., 1996. "Lay people's cognitive models of the economy," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 3-38, February.
    8. Robert J. Blendon, 1997. "Bridging the Gap between the Public's and Economists' Views of the Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 105-118, Summer.
    9. Gangl, Katharina & Kastlunger, Barbara & Kirchler, Erich & Voracek, Martin, 2012. "Confidence in the economy in times of crisis: Social representations of experts and laypeople," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 603-614.
    10. Gaffeo, Edoardo & Canzian, Giulia, 2011. "The psychology of inflation, monetary policy and macroeconomic instability," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 660-670.
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    Cited by:

    1. Elisa Darriet & Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde, 2015. "Why lay social representations of the economy should count in economics," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 14(2), pages 245-258, November.
    2. van Giesen, Roxanne I. & Pieters, Rik, 2019. "Climbing out of an economic crisis: A cycle of consumer sentiment and personal stress," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 109-124.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer sentiments survey; Good-begets-good heuristic; Behavioural macroeconomics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E03 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Macroeconomics
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

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