TY - JOUR AU - Manski, Charles F TI - Survey Measurement of Probabilistic Macroeconomic Expectations: Progress and Promise JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 23418 PY - 2017 Y2 - May 2017 DO - 10.3386/w23418 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23418 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23418.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Charles F. Manski Department of Economics Northwestern University 2211 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2600 Tel: 847/491-8223 Fax: 847/491-7001 E-Mail: cfmanski@northwestern.edu M1 - published as Charles F. Manski. "Survey Measurement of Probabilistic Macroeconomic Expectations: Progress and Promise," in Martin Eichenbaum and Jonathan A. Parker, editors, "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2017, volume 32" University of Chicago Press (2018) AB - Economists commonly suppose that persons have probabilistic expectations for uncertain events, yet empirical research measuring expectations was long rare. The inhibition against collection of expectations data has gradually lessened, generating a substantial body of recent evidence on the expectations of broad populations. This paper first summarizes the history leading to development of the modern literature and overviews its main concerns. I then describe research on three subjects that should be of direct concern to macroeconomists: expectations of equity returns, inflation expectations, and professional macroeconomic forecasters. I also describe work that questions the assumption that persons have well-defined probabilistic expectations and communicate them accurately in surveys. Finally, I consider the evolution of thinking about expectations formation in macroeconomic policy analysis. I favorably observe the increasing willingness of theorists to study alternatives to rational expectations assumptions, but I express concern that models of expectations formation will proliferate in the absence of empirical research to discipline thinking. To make progress, I urge measurement and analysis of the revisions to expectations that agents make following occurrence of unanticipated shocks. ER -