Macro with Micro Data

This CESifo area will focus on “Macro with Micro Data,” bringing together detailed datasets, structural models, and key questions at the intersection of macroeconomics and financial markets. We will draw on rich sources such as administrative records, regulatory databases, and surveys of households, firms, financial intermediaries, and their expectations. These data provide a unique lens to study borrowing, saving, and portfolio choices at the household level; financing and investment decisions by firms; and the lending behavior of financial intermediaries. On the modeling side, we will develop and extend frameworks that incorporate heterogeneity across actors and embed these features into macro-financial models of business cycles and policy transmission. The topics we will explore include the heterogeneous effects of monetary policy on households and firms, the role of financial frictions in amplifying shocks, the interaction of regulation and credit supply, and the contribution of expectations to market dynamics. By linking microeconomic behavior to aggregate outcomes, the group aims to build a good policy-relevant understanding of the real economy and financial markets.