top of page
_D2_8507.jpg

Lena Sophia Bjerkander (she/her)

lena.sophia.mueller@fau.de

Welcome!

​

I am a PhD student at the Chair of Statistics and Econometrics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). My research interests lie in macroeconomic expectations and central bank communication. I hold a MSc in Economics from Lund University and a BSc in Economics from Humboldt-Universtät Berlin. I visited U.C. Berkeley in the fall of 2023 hosted by Yuriy Gorodnichenko.

​

You can find my CV here.

​

Please note that I published under my previous name, Lena Müller.

​

 

Publications

"Local Information and Firm Expectations about Aggregates" with Jonas Dovern and Klaus Wohlrabe, Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming

Using new survey data on quantitative growth expectations of firms in Germany, we show that firms resort to local information when forming expectations about aggregate growth. Firms extrapolate from the economic situation in their county, industry growth and their individual business situation. Variables (fixed effects) measuring local signals account for up to 26% (47%) of the expectation dispersion across firms. The effect is particularly strong for small firms. Our results confirm predictions of theoretical models with rational inattention.

"Estimating Pass‑Through Rates for the 2022 Tax Reduction on Fuel Prices in Germany" with Jonas Dovern, Johannes Frank, Alexander Glas and Daniel Perico, Energy Economics, forthcoming

We analyze the effectiveness of the German tax reduction on fuel prices (‘Tankrabatt’) that was introduced for three months, starting on 1 June 2022. We use the synthetic difference-in-differences estimator to compare actual retail prices of gasoline and diesel to those in a counterfactual situation without the tax reduction. For gasoline, we find that the tax reduction has been completely passed on to consumers. This result is robust to different approaches of constructing the synthetic control group. For diesel, we find evidence of at least partial pass-through, although the estimates are more sensitive to the employed specification. Moreover, the evidence suggests that pass-through rates for diesel started to decline in August while the tax reduction was still in place.

bottom of page