Macroeconomics in the laboratory : three essays about intertemporal decisions and one essay about sunspots
This dissertation presents four macroeconomic laboratory experiments. Three experiments deal with intertemporal consumption decisions and one experiment deals with macroeconomic coordination.
We find evidence that people do not use information optimally in the experiment “The More You Know? – Consumption Behavior and the Communication of Economic Information”.
The experiment “Preferences Over Wealth: Experimental Evidence” shows that people have a tendency to save more than needed.
The experiment “Are the Poor more Impatient than the Rich? Experimental Evidence on the Effect of (Lab) Wealth on Intertemporal Preferences” shows: the rich are more impatient than the poor.
The experiment “Coordination Problems Triggered by Sunspots in the Laboratory” shows that publicly announced forecasts can harm coordination.