Job loss expectations were widespread amongst workers in East Germany following reunification with West Germany. Though experiencing a large negative employment shock, East German workers were nevertheless overpessimistic immediately after reunification with respect to their job loss risk. Over time, job loss expectations fell and converged to West German levels, which was driven by a stabilizing economic environment and by an adaptation of the interpretation of economic signals with workers learning to distinguish individual risk from firm-level risk. In fact, conditional on actual job loss risk, East German workers quickly caught up to West Germans regarding the share of correctly predicted job losses.

中文翻译：

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暂时的过度悲观情绪：大规模负面就业冲击后的失业预期

与西德统一后，东德工人普遍预期失业。尽管经历了巨大的负面就业冲击，但东德工人在重新统一后立即对其失业风险过于悲观。随着时间的推移，失业预期下降并趋于西德水平，这是由稳定的经济环境以及对经济信号解释的调整以及工人学会区分个人风险和公司层面风险所推动的。事实上，以实际失业风险为条件，东德工人在正确预测的失业比例方面迅速赶上了西德人。