To register for the seminar, please send an email to marcel.voegeletu-dortmundde. This should also be accompanied by a current grade transcript from the BOSS.

The registration period is from Monday 03.07.23 to Friday 07.07.23.

When making decisions under uncertainty - which applies to almost all future-oriented consumption and investment decisions - the expectations of consumers, managers and investors are decisive for the decision-making process. This means that faulty expectations lead to wrong decisions. This is especially true at times of volatile economic development, which we are currently experiencing.
Given the fundamental role of expectations for economic decisions, the core question of the seminar is: How do consumers, managers, and investors form their expectations? 
We will break down this core question into three sub-questions:

1. How should economic agents form their expectations in a "theoretically correct" way? From statistics and economics there are clear criteria that "correct" expectations should meet. We want to derive these criteria (mainly intuitively).
2. To what extent do the expectations of consumers, managers and investors actually fulfill the predictions of theory? In the last decade, an extensive academic literature has emerged showing that empirically observable expectations deviate from ideal-type predictions: For example, the current situation, the immediate environment, or the social environment unduly influence expectations. We want to learn about this recent, mostly empirical, literature.
3. What are good sources for forecasts of economic developments? Here we want to identify possible sources of information for the formation of expectations and discuss their practical usefulness.

The literature on which the seminar is based is only available in English. The seminar topics are mainly empirical, but theoretical topics are also possible (on request).

The main goal of the seminar is to practice writing a scientific paper and giving a (scientific) presentation in preparation for the Bachelor thesis. Intensive guidance and supervision will be provided during the seminar.
In terms of content, the participants should be enabled to acquire a basic knowledge of the state of knowledge regarding the formation of expectations of economic subjects. This should enable them to distinguish between promising forecasting approaches for economic dynamics and suboptimal approaches in everyday life and at work.

Information on the seminar schedule can be found under the topic "Seminars and scientific work".