We investigate the implications of experienced-based learning on consumption-saving and labor supply, two fundamental decisions in business cycle models. Using the Dutch Household Survey, we find that individuals who have experienced higher national unemployment rates over their lifetime save...

The standard view suggests that removing barriers to entry and improving judicial enforcement reduces informality and boosts investment and growth. However, a general equilibrium approach shows that this conclusion may hold to a lesser extent in countries with a constrained supply of funds...

In an experimental setting in which investors can entrust their money to traders, we investigate how compensation schemes affect liquidity provision and asset prices. Investors face a trade-off between risk and return. At the benefit of a potentially higher return, they can entrust their money...

This paper presents new evidence on the expectation formation process of firms from a survey of the German manufacturing sector. It focuses on the expectation about their future business conditions, which enters the widely followed economic sentiment index and which is an important determinant...

Motivated by the consumer behavior literature, this paper presents a new business cycle model in which consumers incur a pain of paying and neglect the opportunity costs of consumption. The model has a unique equilibrium and can be easily solved in closed form. Although consumers maximize their...

We investigate the effect of leverage on bubbles in an asset market experiment. We expect higher leverage to produce larger bubbles because (i) it creates moral hazard in a setup with limited liability and (ii) it increases aggregate liquidity. Inconsistent with the moral hazard channel, which...

Credit boom-busts are observed in experimental credit markets with perfect information, no aggregate shocks, and no speculative motive. By contrast, a stable outcome is observed in the island economy, which isolates the borrowers but is otherwise similar to the market economy. The higher...

This paper presents new evidence on the expectation formation process from a Dutch household survey. Households become too optimistic about their future income after their income has improved, consistent with the over-extrapolation of their experience. We show that this effect of experience is...

The standard view suggests that removing barriers to entry and improving judicial enforcement reduces informality and boosts investment and growth. However, a general equilibrium approach shows that this conclusion may hold to a lesser extent in countries with a constrained supply of funds...

In an experimental setting in which investors can entrust their money to traders, we investigate how compensation schemes affect liquidity provision and asset prices. Investors face a trade-off between risk and return. At the benefit of a potentially higher return, they can entrust their money...