Expectations Matter: The New Causal Macroeconomics of Surveys and Experiments

How do expectations about the future influence economic behavior? For decades, economists have known that beliefs play a central role—from how much households spend, to how firms set prices, to how central banks design policy. But figuring out exactly how expectations affect decisions has been one of the field’s most persistent empirical challenges. In this book, Olivier Coibion and Yuriy Gorodnichenko present a fresh empirical approach: using randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to study the causal impact of expectations. Drawing on more than a decade of their research, they show how targeted information treatments can generate experimental variation in beliefs—making it possible to measure how those beliefs influence real-world decisions. Along the way, they reassess the limits of the traditional rational expectations framework and offer a richer, evidence-based picture of how people form and act on their views about the economy. Blending the credibility of field experiments with the big-picture questions of macroeconomics, the authors provide a clear, practical guide to this new methodology—from survey design to implementation to measuring how beliefs pass through into behavior. While much of the book focuses on inflation expectations, later chapters explore how this approach sheds light on the role of uncertainty in firm and household decision making, the influence of expectations on financial behavior, and how peer effects shape household spending. For economists and social scientists alike, this book offers a new lens on how beliefs work—and why they matter. More details on Amazon
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• bsky .app/profile/ygorodnichenko.bsky.social/post/3mhrka4hjm22f (‘ 🧑🏻‍🏫Yuriy Gorodnichenko: Our book(📘 Expectations Matte: The New Causal Macroeconomics of Surveys and Experiments, 2026.)  is finally here!! Oli Coibion, 🖇️@empctmacrotx & me with our advance copies, Grateful to everyone who helped along the way—colleagues, students, coauthors, & early readers who shaped the project at every stage, Official release tomorrow! via Anders Åslund ‘)
• bsky .app/profile/andersaslund.bsky.social/post/3mhszgqvqtk2k (‘ Anders Åslund : What I don’t understand is that US financial markets are so dumb that they believe Trump. Don’t they know (as all of us normal citizens) that Trump always lies? How can any statement (most like Mar 24, 2026 ‘)
• bsky .app/profile/andersaslund.bsky.social/post/3mhsyvhm3rs2k (‘ The criminal felon Trump has made it meaningless to negotiate with the US. 1. Trump decides everything that is important. 2. Trump lies all the time. 3. Trump does not recognize agreements but violate them. Conclusion: Only arms matter. All have 📹to arm as much & fast as possible. US is lost. 👈@EdwardGLuce: “It is a strange situation📜 where the world must await a statement from 🇮🇷Iran to check whether there was any truth to what a US president said.” ‘)
• bsky .app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mhqccp2mo22c (‘ again I point out how strange it is that high-level diplomatic negotiations of war and peace are being conducted by freelancers Steve Witkoff and 📜Jared Kushner, both of whom have egregious conflicts of interest, and not the actual secretary of state Mar 23, 2026, via Anders Åslund ‘)

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