Expectations and Investment
52 Pages Posted: 7 Jun 2016
There are 2 versions of this paper
Expectations and Investment
Expectations and Investment
Date Written: May 2016
Abstract
Using micro data from the Duke University quarterly survey of Chief Financial Officers, we show that corporate investment plans as well as actual investment are well explained by CFOs' expectations of earnings growth. The information in expectations data is not subsumed by traditional variables, such as Tobin's Q or discount rates. We also show that errors in CFO expectations of earnings growth are predictable from past earnings and other data, pointing to the extrapolative structure of expectations and suggesting that expectations may not be rational. This evidence, like earlier findings in finance, points to the usefulness of data on actual expectations for understanding economic behaviour.
Keywords: Expectations, corporate investment, behavioral macroeconomics
JEL Classification: E03, E22, E32, G31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation