Double-Question Survey Measures for the Analysis of Financial Bubbles and Crashes

This article proposes a new double-question survey whereby an individual is presented with two sets of questions; one on beliefs about current asset values and another on price expectations. A theoretical asset pricing model with heterogeneous agents is advanced and the existence of a negative relationship between price expectations and asset valuations is established, and is then tested using survey results on equity, gold, and house prices. Leading indicators of bubbles and crashes are proposed and their potential value is illustrated in the context of a dynamic panel regression of realized house price changes across key Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the U.S. In an out-of-sample forecasting exercise, it is also shown that forecasts of house price changes (pooled across MSAs) that make use of bubble and crash indicators perform significantly better than a benchmark model that only uses lagged and expected house price changes. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.