Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/219998 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal [ISSN:] 1864-6042 [Volume:] 14 [Issue:] 2020-16 [Publisher:] Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) [Place:] Kiel [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 1-38
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
The great recession (2008) triggered an apparent discrepancy between empirical findings and macroeconomic models based on rational expectations alone. This gap led to a series of recent developments of a behavioral microfoundation of macroeconomics combined with the underlying experimental and behavioral Beauty Contest (BC) literature, which the authors review in this paper. They introduce the reader to variations of the Keynesian Beauty Contest (Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest, and money, 1936), theoretically and experimentally, demonstrating systematic patterns of out-of-equilibrium behavior. This divergence of (benchmark) solutions and bounded rationality observed in human behavior has been resolved through stepwise reasoning, the so-called level k, or cognitive hierarchy models. Furthermore, the authors show how the generalized BC function with limited parameter specifications encompasses relevant micro and macro models. Therefore, the stepwise reasoning models emerge naturally as building blocks for new behavioral macroeconomic theories to understand puzzles like the lacking rise of inflation after the financial crisis, the efficacy of quantitative easing, the forward guidance puzzle, and the effectiveness of temporary fiscal expansion.
Subjects: 
Beauty Contest game
expectation formation
equilibration
level k reasoning
behavioral macroeconomics
game theory
experimental economics
JEL: 
E12
E13
E7
D80
D9
C91
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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