IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/27182.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Latent Dirichlet Analysis of Categorical Survey Expectations

Author

Listed:
  • Evan M. Munro
  • Serena Ng

Abstract

Beliefs are important determinants of an individual's choices and economic outcomes, so understanding how they differ across individuals is of considerable interest. Researchers often rely on surveys that report individual expectations as qualitative data. We propose using a Bayesian hierarchical latent class model to summarize and interpret observed heterogeneity in categorical expectations data. We show that the statistical model corresponds to an economic structural model of information acquisition, which guides interpretation and estimation of the model parameters. An algorithm based on stochastic optimization is proposed to estimate a model for repeated surveys when beliefs follow a dynamic structure and conjugate priors are not appropriate. Guidance on selecting the number of belief types is also provided. Two examples are considered. The first shows that there is information in the Michigan survey responses beyond the consumer sentiment index that is officially published. The second shows that belief types constructed from survey responses can be used in a subsequent analysis to estimate heterogeneous returns to education.

Suggested Citation

  • Evan M. Munro & Serena Ng, 2020. "Latent Dirichlet Analysis of Categorical Survey Expectations," NBER Working Papers 27182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27182
    Note: EFG ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w27182.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David M. Blei & Alp Kucukelbir & Jon D. McAuliffe, 2017. "Variational Inference: A Review for Statisticians," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 112(518), pages 859-877, April.
    2. Martin Wittenberg & Murray Leibbrandt, 2017. "Measuring Inequality by Asset Indices: A General Approach with Application to South Africa," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 706-730, December.
    3. Stephen Hansen & Michael McMahon & Andrea Prat, 2018. "Transparency and Deliberation Within the FOMC: A Computational Linguistics Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 801-870.
    4. Shiller, Robert J & Kon-Ya, Fumiko & Tsutsui, Yoshiro, 1996. "Why Did the Nikkei Crash? Expanding the Scope of Expectations Data Collection," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 156-164, February.
    5. William A. Branch, 2004. "The Theory of Rationally Heterogeneous Expectations: Evidence from Survey Data on Inflation Expectations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 592-621, July.
    6. Thibaut Lamadon & Elena Manresa & Stephane Bonhomme, 2016. "Discretizing Unobserved Heterogeneity," 2016 Meeting Papers 1536, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Vojtěch Bartoš & Michal Bauer & Julie Chytilová & Filip Matějka, 2016. "Attention Discrimination: Theory and Field Experiments with Monitoring Information Acquisition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1437-1475, June.
    8. Serena Ng, 2015. "Constructing Common Factors from Continuous and Categorical Data," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(6-10), pages 1141-1171, December.
    9. Oriana Bandiera & Andrea Prat & Stephen Hansen & Raffaella Sadun, 2020. "CEO Behavior and Firm Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(4), pages 1325-1369.
    10. Andrew Caplin & Mark Dean, 2015. "Revealed Preference, Rational Inattention, and Costly Information Acquisition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2183-2203, July.
    11. Pesaran, M Hashem, 1985. "Formation of Inflation Expectations in British Manufacturing Industries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(380), pages 948-975, December.
    12. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    13. Stanislav Kolenikov & Gustavo Angeles, 2009. "Socioeconomic Status Measurement With Discrete Proxy Variables: Is Principal Component Analysis A Reliable Answer?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 128-165, March.
    14. Jeff Dominitz & Charles F. Manski, 2004. "How Should We Measure Consumer Confidence?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 51-66, Spring.
    15. Hiroyuki Kasahara & Katsumi Shimotsu, 2009. "Nonparametric Identification of Finite Mixture Models of Dynamic Discrete Choices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(1), pages 135-175, January.
    16. Richard McHugh, 1956. "Efficient estimation and local identification in latent class analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 21(4), pages 331-347, December.
    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. Custodio João, Igor & Lucas, André & Schaumburg, Julia & Schwaab, Bernd, 2023. "Dynamic clustering of multivariate panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 237(2).
    2. Szymon Sacher & Laura Battaglia & Stephen Hansen, 2021. "Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for Regression with High-Dimensional Categorical Data," Papers 2107.08112, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.

    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. Evan Munro & Serena Ng, 2022. "Latent Dirichlet Analysis of Categorical Survey Responses," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 256-271, January.
    2. Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Michael F. Bryan & Simon M. Potter & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 2008. "Rethinking the measurement of household inflation expectations: preliminary findings," Staff Reports 359, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    3. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Weale, Martin, 2006. "Survey Expectations," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 715-776, Elsevier.
    4. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Pfajfar, D. & Santoro, E., 2008. "Asymmetries in Inflation Expectation Formation Across Demographic Groups," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0824, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. Reid, Monique & Siklos, Pierre & Plessis, Stan Du, 2021. "What drives household inflation expectations in South Africa? Demographics and anchoring under inflation targeting," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 45(3).
    7. Maurizio Bovi, 2008. "The “Psycho-analysis” of Common People’s Forecast Errors. Evidence from European Consumer Surveys," ISAE Working Papers 95 Classification-JEL C42, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY).
    8. Kevin Lansing, 2009. "Time Varying U.S. Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(2), pages 304-326, April.
    9. Paul Hubert, 2014. "FOMC Forecasts as a Focal Point for Private Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(7), pages 1381-1420, October.
    10. Adriana Cornea‐Madeira & João Madeira, 2022. "Econometric Analysis of Switching Expectations in UK Inflation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(3), pages 651-673, June.
    11. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    12. Thomas Lux & Jaba Ghonghadze, 2011. "Modeling the Dynamics of EU Economic Sentiment Indicators: An Interaction-Based Approach," Post-Print hal-00711445, HAL.
    13. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    14. Demery, David & Duck, Nigel W., 2007. "The theory of rational expectations and the interpretation of macroeconomic data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-18, March.
    15. Elias, Christopher J., 2022. "Adaptive learning with heterogeneous expectations in an estimated medium-scale New Keynesian model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    16. Gerunov, Anton, 2014. "Критичен Преглед На Основните Подходи За Моделиране На Икономическите Очаквания [A Critical Review of Major Approaches for Modeling Economic Expectations]," MPRA Paper 68797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Tomasz Łyziak & Xuguang Simon Sheng, 2023. "Disagreement in Consumer Inflation Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(8), pages 2215-2241, December.
    18. David A. Comerford, 2024. "Response Bias in Survey Measures of Expectations: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Expectations’ Inflation Module," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(4), pages 933-953, June.
    19. Goy, Gavin & Hommes, Cars & Mavromatis, Kostas, 2022. "Forward guidance and the role of central bank credibility under heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1240-1274.
    20. Michael J. Lamla & Thomas Maag, 2012. "The Role of Media for Inflation Forecast Disagreement of Households and Professional Forecasters," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1325-1350, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy

    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:nbr:nberwo:27182. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.