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...

Forthright characterization of scientific uncertainty is important in principle and serves important practical purposes. Nevertheless, economists and other researchers commonly report findings with incredible certitude, reporting point predictions and estimates. To motivate expression of...

Whereas most of the world has experienced decreasing fertility during the past half century, Israel has experienced a puzzling mix of trends. Completed fertility has decreased sharply in some ethnic-religious groups (Mizrahi Jews and non-Bedouin Arabs) and increased moderately in other groups...

We have recently initiated the Survey of Economic Expectations (SEE) to learn how Americans perceive their near-term futures. This paper uses SEE data on over two thousand labor force participants interviewed in 1994 and 1995 to describe how Americans in the labor force perceive the risk of...

We report here on the design and first application of an interactive computer-administered personal interview (CAPI) survey eliciting from high school students and college undergraduates their expectations of the income they would earn if they were to complete different levels of schooling. We...

A common concern of evaluation studies is to learn the distribution of outcomes when a specified treatment policy or assignment rule, determines the treatment received by each member of a specified population. Recent studies have emphasized evaluation of policies providing the same treatment to...

This paper analyzes the probabilistic measures of job insecurity that have recently become available through the nationwide Survey of Economic Expectations (SEE). Since 1994, employed SEE respondents have been asked questions eliciting their subjective probabilities of job loss in the coming...

Economists studying public policy have generally assumed that the relevant social planner knows how policy affects population behavior. Planners typically do not possess all of this knowledge, so there is reason to consider policy formation with partial knowledge of policy impacts. Here I...

An important practical objective of empirical studies of treatment response is to provide decision makers with information useful in choosing treatments. Often the decision maker is a planner who must choose treatments for the members of a heterogeneous population; for example, a physician may...

Economists have long been ambivalent about whether the discipline should focus on the analysis of markets or should be concerned with social interactions more generally. Recently the discipline has sought to broaden its scope while maintaining the rigor of modern economic analysis. Major...