Research

Household Disagreement about Expected Inflation, with Paula Patzelt and Ricardo Reis. 

June 2025. In Research Handbook of Inflation (Edward Elgar Publishing), edited by Guido Ascari and Riccardo Trezzi. Chapter 15. 

Abstract: This paper surveys the major facts from research on disagreement between households on what they expect inflation to be. We document them using figures and correlations that capture: the statistical regularities on the observable drivers of disagreement, the measurement of residual disagreement, the usefulness of disagreement to forecast inflation, the response of disagreement to shocks, the disagreement between households and professionals, and the relation between disagreement, risk, and uncertainty.

• Draft (link)

• Data and figures (GitHub)

Polarizing Time Preferences: the Ambivalent Role of Uncertainty in Savings. Current draft: February 2026. 

Abstract: This paper studies how uncertainty reshapes forward-looking behavior in household decision-making. Using a survey experiment (N = 2,000), I show that exogenous increases in income uncertainty polarize time preferences: individuals who are initially more forward-looking become even more forward-looking, while those who are initially short-sighted shift further toward the present. This divergence carries through to saving: uncertainty raises saving for some households but reduces it for others, so that the aggregate precautionary response appears muted. I explain this pattern with a consumption-saving model in which agents choose how much thought to allocate to the future, trading off the benefits of planning against planning costs that rise with uncertainty. Because individuals differ in how strongly these costs respond to uncertainty, the same shock leads some to plan more and others to disengage. Embedding the mechanism in an incomplete-markets general equilibrium model, calibrated to the experimental evidence, produces endogenous heterogeneity in patience and raises the wealth Gini by 22% relative to an economy with uniform discounting. How households cope with risk -- not just the risk they face -- shapes wealth inequality.

Empty vessels make the most noise: "don't know" answers in household expectations surveys. Unpublished manuscript. Current version: March 2024. 

Abstract: This paper explores the meaning of “don’t know” (DK/NA) responses in household expectations surveys, and how their treatment can affect inferences. Using primarily the Michigan Survey of Consumers (MSC), I find that: (i) DK/NAs capture not only high uncertainty, but also a lack of knowledge and understanding, as well as other behavioral traits; (ii) Answering “don’t know” is much more prevalent among women, low education, low income and older households, making them more impacted than others by the deletion of DK/NA responses, and entailing concerns about a distortion of sample weights when doing so; (iii) Sample selection concerns arise when the socio-economic characteristics correlated with a higher propensity to answer “don’t know” are also correlated with the values of expectations, which is the case for inflation expectations, as confirmed by both my imputation method on MSC data and a natural experiment offered by the Bank of England/Ipsos Inflation Attitudes Survey. This leads to a negative bias in reported average expected inflation expectations; (iv) Multiple imputation offers new insights about expectations formation by including DK/NAs in statistical analysis.

Risky Business? Earning Dynamics and Entrepreneurship 

with Bo Jacobs-Strom and Kate Smith (LSE)

The “uncertainty trap”: does greater subjective uncertainty about economic outlooks reinforce inequalities?