Dancing in the dark: sentiment shocks and economic activity

The business cycle is driven by expectations - some justified, some not - as documented by a host of studies. What is less clear are the conditions that make the economy susceptible to "sentiment shocks." In this paper, we document that uncertainty, as measured by forecaster disagreement,...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Boeck, Maximilian (VerfasserIn) , Enders, Zeno (VerfasserIn) , Kleemann, Michael (VerfasserIn) , Müller, Gernot J. (VerfasserIn)
Dokumenttyp: Book/Monograph Arbeitspapier
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Munich, Germany Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research - CESifo GmbH November 2025
Schriftenreihe:CESifo working papers 12252 (2025)
In: CESifo working papers (12252 (2025))

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Online-Zugang:Verlag, kostenfrei: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12252.pdf
Verlag, kostenfrei: https://www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/publications/2025/working-paper/dancing-dark-sentiment-shocks-and-economic-activity
Volltext
Verfasserangaben:Maximilian Boeck, Zeno Enders, Michael Kleemann, Gernot J. Müller
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The business cycle is driven by expectations - some justified, some not - as documented by a host of studies. What is less clear are the conditions that make the economy susceptible to "sentiment shocks." In this paper, we document that uncertainty, as measured by forecaster disagreement, is essential. At times when disagreement is low, sentiment shocks hardly matter for economic activity but are fully absorbed by prices. If, instead, disagreement is high, they move activity with little impact on prices. We obtain these results based on time-series data and a theoretical account based on a New Keynesian model with dispersed information.
Beschreibung:Online Resource