Examining Income Expectations in the College and Early Post-College Periods: New Distributional Tests of Rational Expectations

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of the European Economic Association
Year: 2024
Volume: 22
Issue: 6
Pages: 2700-2747

Authors (4)

Thomas F Crossley (not in RePEc) Yifan Gong (University of Nebraska) Ralph Stinebrickner (not in RePEc) Todd Stinebrickner (University of Western Ontario)

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 4 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Using unique longitudinal probabilistic expectations data from the Berea Panel Study, which cover both college and early post-college periods, we examine young adults’ beliefs about their future incomes. We introduce two new approaches to testing whether, ex ante, agents exhibit Rational Expectations. We show that taking into account the additional information about higher moments of individual belief distributions contained in probabilistic expectations data reveals violations of Rational Expectations that are not detected by existing mean-based tests. Empirically, we find that our subjects underestimate the level of uncertainty they face about future incomes.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:jeurec:v:22:y:2024:i:6:p:2700-2747.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
4
Added to Database
2026-01-25