Data for: Firm optimism and pessimism

Abstract of associated article: This paper explores the question of whether firms have systematic expectation biases. Using microdata from the West German manufacturing subset of the IFO Business Climate Survey, we infer quarterly production growth rates at the firm level. We then combine this information with production growth expectations over a quarterly horizon to construct quantitative firm-specific expectation errors. Our findings show that at most one-third of our firms systematically over- or underpredict their production growth one-quarter ahead. Our findings further show that larger and exporting firms tend to have more realistic expectations, while firms with higher leverage are more prone to expectations that are biased towards optimism.

相关研究论文摘要：本文旨在探讨企业是否存在系统性预期偏差这一研究问题。本文使用德国IFO商业景气调查（IFO Business Climate Survey）西德制造业子数据集的微观数据，推算得到企业层面的季度生产增长率；随后将该测算结果与企业的季度维度生产增长预期相结合，构建出针对单个企业的量化预期误差。研究结果表明，样本企业中仅有至多三分之一会系统性高估或低估其一个季度后的生产增长水平。进一步研究发现，规模更大的企业与出口企业的预期往往更为贴合实际，而杠杆率较高的企业则更容易出现乐观偏向的预期偏差。