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7.3 The Theory of Rational Expectations
1) Economists have focused more attention on the formation of expectations in recent years. This
increase in interest can probably best be explained by the recognition that
A) expectations influence the behavior of participants in the economy and thus have a major
impact on economic activity.
B) expectations influence only a few individuals, have little impact on the overall economy, but
can have important effects on a few markets.
C) expectations influence many individuals, have little impact on the overall economy, but can
have distributional effects.
D) models that ignore expectations have little predictive power, even in the short run.
2) The view that expectations change relatively slowly over time in response to new information
is known in economics as
A) rational expectations.
B) irrational expectations.
C) slow-response expectations.
D) adaptive expectations.
3) If expectations of the future inflation rate are formed solely on the basis of a weighted average
of past inflation rates, then economists would say that expectation formation is
A) irrational.
B) rational.
C) adaptive.
D) reasonable.
4) If expectations are formed adaptively, then people
A) use more information than just past data on a single variable to form their expectations of that
variable.
B) often change their expectations quickly when faced with new information.
C) use only the information from past data on a single variable to form their expectations of that
variable.
D) never change their expectations once they have been made.