A közgazdaságtudományi közélet megújulásáért

Műhelytanulmányok

Economic decisions depend on economic expectations. Using Hungarian monthly survey data between 2000 and 2009, we show that the relationship between expectations (both at the macroeconomic and household levels) and socioeconomic status (SES), as represented by income rank and education level, is non-linear. In many instances, there is no significant difference in expectations between the two lower quintiles. However, individuals in the upper (fourth and top) quintiles exhibit significantly more positive expectations than those in the lower quintiles. There is also a clear difference in expectations between the fourth and the top quintiles. In terms of education level, individuals with a high-school degree have significantly more positive expectations compared to their peers without one. Significant differences in economic expectations are also observed between high-school graduates and individuals with a university diploma, particularly regarding inflation, savings expectations, and the assessment of the household’s future financial situation. Disparities in household-level expectations based on SES are more pronounced than those in macroeconomic expectations. Past experiences and household-level optimism seem to be key factors influencing macroeconomic expectations. Furthermore, we document that both macroeconomic and household-level expectations predict the intention for significant expenditures, even after controlling for SES variables.

Péter Csóka, P. Jean-Jacques Herings

MKE-WP-38934

We consider financial networks where agents are linked to each other via mutual liabilities. In case of bankruptcy, there are potentially many bankruptcy rules, ways to distribute the assets of a bankrupt agent over the other agents. One common approach is to first apply pairwise netting of agents that have mutual liabilities and next use the proportional rule to determine the payments on the basis of the net liabilities. We refer to this as the pairwise netting proportional rule. The pairwise netting proportional rule satisfies the basic requirements of claims boundedness, limited liability, priority of creditors, and continuity. It also satisfies the desirable properties of net impartiality, an agent that has two creditors with the same net claims pays the same amount to both creditors on top of pairwise netting, and invariance to mitosis, an agent that splits into a number of identical agents is not affecting the payments of the other agents. We demonstrate that if net impartiality and invariance to mitosis, together with the basic requirements, are regarded as imperative properties, then payments should be determined by the pairwise netting proportional rule.

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