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Adaptive Agents May Be Smarter than You Think: Unbiasedness in Adaptive Expectations

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Palestrini
  • Domenico Delli Gatti
  • Mauro Gallegati
  • Bruce C. Greenwald

Abstract

Agents forming adaptive expectations generally make systematic mistakes. This characterization has fostered the rejection of adaptive expectations in macroeconomics. Experimental evidence, however, shows that in complex environments human subjects frequently rely on adaptive heuristics – model-consistent expectations being simply too difficult or impossible to implement – but their forecasting performance is not as inadequate as assumed in the characterization above. In this paper we show that adaptive agents may not be as gullible as we used to think. In a model with adaptive expectations augmented with a Belief Correction term (which takes into account the drift of the macroeconomic variable of interest) the average forecasting error is frequently close to zero, hence (belief amended) adaptive expectations are close to unbiasedness.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Palestrini & Domenico Delli Gatti & Mauro Gallegati & Bruce C. Greenwald, 2021. "Adaptive Agents May Be Smarter than You Think: Unbiasedness in Adaptive Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 9205, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9205
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    heterogeneous adaptive expectations; belief correction; agent based models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy

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