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Policymakers attach an important role to the macroeconomic outlook of households. Using a representative online panel form the U.S., the authors examine how individuals' macroeconomic expectations causally affect their personal economic prospects and their behavior and provide them with different professional forecasts about the likelihood of a recession. The authors find that groups with the largest exposure to aggregate risk, such as individuals working in cyclical industries, are most likely to respond to an improved macroeconomic outlook, while a large fraction of the population is unlikely to react.
We study platform design in online markets in which buying involves a (nonmonetary) cost for consumers caused by privacy and security concerns. Firms decide whether to require registration at their website before consumers learn relevant product information. We derive conditions under which a monopoly seller benefits from ex ante registration requirements and demonstrate that the profitability of registration requirements is increased when taking into account the prospect of future purchases or an informational value of consumer registration to the firm. Moreover, we consider the effectiveness of discounts (store credit) as a means to influence the consumers’ registration decision. Finally, we confirm the profitability of ex ante registration requirements in the presence of price competition.