IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v102y2017icp455-461.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inferring beliefs from actions

Author

Listed:
  • Arieli, Itai
  • Mueller-Frank, Manuel

Abstract

We address the question to which degree the private information of a decision maker is revealed through his optimal action, in an environment with compact metrizable state and action space. We show that the decision maker's optimal action reveals his posterior distribution for a generic set of continuous utility functions if and only if the set of actions contains no isolated points.

Suggested Citation

  • Arieli, Itai & Mueller-Frank, Manuel, 2017. "Inferring beliefs from actions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 455-461.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:102:y:2017:i:c:p:455-461
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825617300271
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yi‐Chun Chen & Siyang Xiong, 2013. "Genericity and Robustness of Full Surplus Extraction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(2), pages 825-847, March.
    2. Edi Karni, 2009. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 603-606, March.
    3. Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2004. "Prediction Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 107-126, Spring.
    4. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    5. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    6. Geanakoplos, John D. & Polemarchakis, Heraklis M., 1982. "We can't disagree forever," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 192-200, October.
    7. Philip J Reny & Motty Perry, 2006. "Toward a Strategic Foundation for Rational Expectations Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1231-1269, September.
    8. Eddie Dekel & Yossi Feinberg, 2006. "Non-Bayesian Testing of a Stochastic Prediction," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 893-906.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elchanan Mossel & Allan Sly & Omer Tamuz, 2015. "Strategic Learning and the Topology of Social Networks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 1755-1794, September.
    2. Ali, S. Nageeb, 2018. "On the role of responsiveness in rational herds," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 79-82.
    3. Alex Centeno, 2022. "A Structural Model for Detecting Communities in Networks," Papers 2209.08380, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    4. Itai Arieli & Manuel Mueller-Frank, 2019. "Multidimensional Social Learning," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(3), pages 913-940.
    5. Mueller-Frank, Manuel & Arieliy, Itai, 2015. "A General Model of Boundedly Rational Observational Learning: Theory and Experiment," IESE Research Papers D/1120, IESE Business School.
    6. Pooya Molavi & Ceyhun Eksin & Alejandro Ribeiro & Ali Jadbabaie, 2016. "Learning to Coordinate in Social Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 605-621, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vives, Xavier, 1997. "Learning from Others: A Welfare Analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-200, August.
    2. Brian Knight & Nathan Schiff, 2010. "Momentum and Social Learning in Presidential Primaries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1110-1150.
    3. Ethan Mollick & Ramana Nanda, 2016. "Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(6), pages 1533-1553, June.
    4. Mueller-Frank, Manuel, 2014. "Does one Bayesian make a difference?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 423-452.
    5. Li, Wei & Tan, Xu, 2021. "Cognitively-constrained learning from neighbors," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 32-54.
    6. Bossan, Benjamin & Jann, Ole & Hammerstein, Peter, 2015. "The evolution of social learning and its economic consequences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 266-288.
    7. Ali, S. Nageeb, 2018. "On the role of responsiveness in rational herds," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 79-82.
    8. Ding, Huihui & Pivato, Marcus, 2021. "Deliberation and epistemic democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 138-167.
    9. Peter M. DeMarzo & Dimitri Vayanos & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 2003. "Persuasion Bias, Social Influence, and Unidimensional Opinions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 909-968.
    10. Azomahou, T. & Opolot, D., 2014. "Beliefs dynamics in communication networks," MERIT Working Papers 2014-034, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    11. Ruomeng Cui & Dennis J. Zhang & Achal Bassamboo, 2019. "Learning from Inventory Availability Information: Evidence from Field Experiments on Amazon," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1216-1235, March.
    12. Hedlund, Jonas & Oyarzun, Carlos, 2016. "Imitation in Heterogeneous Populations," Working Papers 0625, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    13. Cao, Melanie & Shi, Shouyong, 2006. "Signaling in the Internet craze of initial public offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 818-833, September.
    14. Kraemer, Carlo & Noth, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2006. "Information aggregation with costly information and random ordering: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 423-432, March.
    15. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    16. Buechel, Berno & Hellmann, Tim & Klößner, Stefan, 2015. "Opinion dynamics and wisdom under conformity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 240-257.
    17. Boğaçhan Çelen & Kyle Hyndman, 2012. "An experiment of social learning with endogenous timing," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 16(2), pages 251-268, September.
    18. Bohl, Martin T. & Branger, Nicole & Trede, Mark, 2017. "The case for herding is stronger than you think," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 30-40.
    19. Battaglini, Marco, 2005. "Sequential voting with abstention," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 445-463, May.
    20. Malik, Saif Ullah & Elahi, Muhammad Ather, 2014. "Analysis of Herd Behavior Using Quantile Regression: Evidence from Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)," MPRA Paper 55322, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Belief revelation; Information aggregation; Learning; Scoring rules;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:102:y:2017:i:c:p:455-461. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.