IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/isfiwp/275780.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Analogies and Theories: The Role of Simplicity and the Emergence of Norms

Author

Listed:
  • Gayer, Gabrielle
  • Gilboa, Itzhak

Abstract

We consider the dynamics of reasoning by general rules (theories) and by specific cases (analogies). When an agent faces an exogenous process, we show that, under mild conditions, if reality happens to be simple, the agent will converge to adopt a theory and discard analogical thinking. If, however, reality is complex, the agent may rely on analogies more than on theories. By contrast, when the agent is a player in a large population coordination game, and the process is generated by all players' predictions, convergence to a theory is much more likely. This may explain how a large population of players selects an equilibrium in such a game, and how social norms emerge. Mixed cases, involving noisy endogenous processes are likely to give rise to complex dynamics of reasoning, switching between theories and analogies.

Suggested Citation

  • Gayer, Gabrielle & Gilboa, Itzhak, 2012. "Analogies and Theories: The Role of Simplicity and the Emergence of Norms," Foerder Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 275780, Tel-Aviv University > Foerder Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:isfiwp:275780
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.275780
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/275780/files/2013-4.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.275780?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Itzhak Gilboa & David Schmeidler, 2003. "Inductive Inference: An Axiomatic Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 1-26, January.
    2. Gilboa,Itzhak & Schmeidler,David, 2001. "A Theory of Case-Based Decisions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521802345, January.
    3. Kalai, Ehud & Lehrer, Ehud, 1993. "Rational Learning Leads to Nash Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 1019-1045, September.
    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. Todd Guilfoos & Andreas Duus Pape, 2020. "Estimating Case-Based Learning," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-25, September.
    2. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2011. "Economic Models as Analogies, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-030, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 31 Jul 2012.
    3. I. Gilboa & A. Postlewaite & L. Samuelson & D. Schmeidler, 2015. "Economic models as analogies," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.

    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. O’Callaghan, Patrick H., 2018. "Axioms for measuring utility on partial mixture sets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 76-86.
    2. Gilboa, Itzhak & Samuelson, Larry & Schmeidler, David, 2013. "Dynamics of inductive inference in a unified framework," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1399-1432.
    3. O'Callaghan, Patrick, 2016. "Measuring utility without mixing apples and oranges and eliciting beliefs about stock prices," MPRA Paper 69363, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Gayer, Gabrielle, 2010. "Perception of probabilities in situations of risk: A case based approach," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 130-143, January.
    5. O'Callaghan, Patrick, 2017. "Axioms for Measuring without mixing apples and Oranges," MPRA Paper 81196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 2010. "Simplicity and likelihood: An axiomatic approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1757-1775, September.
    7. Gilboa, Itzhak & Lieberman, Offer & Schmeidler, David, 2011. "A similarity-based approach to prediction," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 162(1), pages 124-131, May.
    8. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 2003. "A derivation of expected utility maximization in the context of a game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 172-182, July.
    9. Bleile, Jörg, 2016. "Cautious Belief Formation," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 507, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    10. E. Aragones & I. Gilboa & A. Postlewaite & D. Schmeidler, 2003. "Accuracy vs. Simplicity: A Complex Trade-Off," Levine's Working Paper Archive 506439000000000185, David K. Levine.
    11. Agastya, Murali & Slinko, Arkadii, 2015. "Dynamic choice in a complex world," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 232-258.
    12. O'Callaghan, Patrick, 2013. "Ordinal, nonlinear context dependence," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 152450, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    13. Nuñez, M. & Valletta, G., 2012. "The information simplicity of scoring rules," Research Memorandum 011, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    14. Bleile, Jörg, 2016. "Limited Attention in Case-Based Belief Formation," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 518, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    15. Patrick H. O'Callaghan, 2019. "Second-order Inductive Inference: an axiomatic approach," Papers 1904.02934, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2021.
    16. O'Callaghan, Patrick, 2016. "Minimal conditions for parametric continuity and stable policy in extreme settings," MPRA Paper 70989, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Maxim Raginsky & Angelia Nedić, 2016. "Online Discrete Optimization in Social Networks in the Presence of Knightian Uncertainty," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 662-679, June.
    18. Stefania D'Amico, 2005. "Density selection and combination under model ambiguity: an application to stock returns," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-09, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J., 2022. "Structured ambiguity and model misspecification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    20. Diego Ferraro & Daniela Blanco & Sebasti'an Pessah & Rodrigo Castro, 2021. "Land use change in agricultural systems: an integrated ecological-social simulation model of farmer decisions and cropping system performance based on a cellular automata approach," Papers 2109.01031, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory

    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:ags:isfiwp:275780. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fotauil.html .

    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.