Zeno Enders

Contagion of Optimism and Pessimism

Various factors affect business cycles. Zeno Enders and Gernot Müller, during their stay at the Ifo Institute, plan to investigate how optimism and pessimism can shape business cycles. Specifically, they intend to analyse how optimism and/or pessimism about the economic situation spreads through the economy, employing Ifo survey data to measure individual firms’ sentiment, by which they hope to be able to measure the contagion of optimism and pessimism in the cross section and over time.

Zeno Enders is Professor (W3) at the University of Heidelberg, having previously served as Assistant Professor (W1)at the University of Bonn. He was awarded a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute, Florence. On his thesis committee were Rick van der Ploeg, Giancarlo Corsetti, Jordi Gali and Michael Burda. His Diplom in Economics is from the Humboldt University, where Harald Uhlig was his supervisor.