Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Do We Follow Others When We Should? A Simple Test of Rational Expectations

Contents:

Author Info

  • Weizsäcker, Georg

    () (DIW Berlin)

Abstract

The paper presents a new meta data set covering 13 experiments on the social learning games by Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch (1992). The large amount of data makes it possible to estimate the empirically optimal action for a large variety of decision situations and ask about the economic significance of suboptimal play. For example, one can ask how much of the possible payoffs the players earn in situations where it is empirically optimal that they follow others and contradict their own information. The answer is 53% on average across all experiments – only slightly more than what they would earn by choosing at random. The players’ own information carries much more weight in the choices than the information conveyed by other players’ choices: the average player contradicts her own signal only if the empirical odds ratio of the own signal being wrong, conditional on all available information, is larger than 2:1, rather than 1:1 as would be implied by rational expectations. A regression analysis formulates a straightforward test of rational expectations, which rejects, and confirms that the reluctance to follow others generates a large part of the observed variance in payoffs, adding to the variance that is due to situational differences.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp3616.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3616.

as in new window
Length: 38 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2008
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in: American Economic Review, 2010, 100 (5), 2340-2360
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3616

Contact details of provider:
Postal: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894 223
Fax: +49 228 3894 180
Web page: http://www.iza.org

Order Information:
Postal: IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Email:

Related research

Keywords: social learning; meta analysis; failure of rational expectations; information cascades;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Mathias Drehmann & Jörg Oechssler, 2004. "Herding and Contrarian Behavior in Financial Markets - An Internet Experiment," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 55, Econometric Society.
  2. Weizsäcker, Georg, 2003. "Ignoring the rationality of others: evidence from experimental normal-form games," Open Access publications from London School of Economics and Political Science http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/, London School of Economics and Political Science.
  3. Dorothea Kübler & Georg Weizsäcker, 2005. "Are Longer Cascades More Stable?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 330-339, 04/05.
  4. Huck, Steffen & Oechssler, Jorg, 2000. "Informational cascades in the laboratory: Do they occur for the right reasons?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 661-671, December.
  5. Anderson, Lisa R, 2001. "Payoff Effects in Information Cascade Experiments," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 609-15, October.
  6. Grebe, Tim & Schmid, Julia & Stiehler, Andreas, 2008. "Do individuals recognize cascade behavior of others? - An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 197-209, April.
  7. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2004. "Two are few and four are many: number effects in experimental oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 435-446, April.
  8. Alevy, Jonathan E. & Haigh, Michael S. & List, John A., 2003. "Information Cascades: Evidence From A Field Experiment With Financial Market Professionals," Working Papers 28608, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
  9. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2005. "Herd Behavior in a Laboratory Financial Market," Experimental 0502002, EconWPA.
  10. Fahr, René & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2011. "Who follows the crowd—Groups or individuals?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 200-209.
  11. 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.
  12. Hessel Oosterbeek & Randolph Sloof & Gijs van de Kuilen, 2004. "Cultural differences in ultimatum game experiments: Evidence from a meta-analysis," Experimental 0401003, EconWPA.
  13. Harless, David W & Camerer, Colin F, 1994. "The Predictive Utility of Generalized Expected Utility Theories," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1251-89, November.
  14. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 2010. "A theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom and cultural change as informational Cascades," Levine's Working Paper Archive 1193, David K. Levine.
  15. Dorothea Kübler & Georg Weizs�cker, 2004. "Limited Depth of Reasoning and Failure of Cascade Formation in the Laboratory," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(2), pages 425-441.
  16. Dorothea K¸bler & Georg Weizs”cker, 2004. "Limited Depth of Reasoning and Failure of Cascade Formation in the Laboratory," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 425-441, 04.
  17. Guarino, Antonio & Harmgart, Heike & Huck, Steffen, 2011. "Aggregate information cascades," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 167-185, September.
  18. Markus Noth & Martin Weber, 2003. "Information Aggregation with Random Ordering: Cascades and Overconfidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 166-189, January.
  19. Syngjoo Choi & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2005. "Learning in Networks: An Experimental Study," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000044, UCLA Department of Economics.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Repubblica e il vincolismo
    by Alberto Bagnai in Goofynomics on 2012-06-16 20:49:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Mark Armstrong & Steffen Huck, 2010. "Behavioral Economics as Applied to Firms: A Primer," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 6.
  2. Anthony Ziegelmeyer & Christoph March & Sebastian Krügel, 2012. ""Do We Follow Others when We Should? A Simple Test of Rational Expectations": Comment," Jena Economic Research Papers 2012-006, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Planck-Institute of Economics.
  3. Egebark, Johan & Ekström, Mathias, 2011. "Like What You Like or Like What Others Like? Conformity and Peer Effects on Facebook," Working Paper Series 886, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
  4. Antonio Guarino & Philippe Jehie, 2009. "Social Learning with Coarse Inference," Levine's Working Paper Archive 814577000000000292, David K. Levine.
  5. Stefania Sitzia & Robert Sugden, 2011. "Implementing theoretical models in the laboratory, and what this can and cannot achieve," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 323-343, December.
  6. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
  7. Christoph March & Sebastian Krügel & Anthony Ziegelmeyer, 2012. "Do We Follow Private Information when We Should? Laboratory Evidence on Naive Herding," PSE Working Papers halshs-00671378, HAL.
  8. Antonio Guarino & Philippe Jehiel, 2009. "Social Leanring with Course Inference," WEF Working Papers 0050, ESRC World Economy and Finance Research Programme, Birkbeck, University of London.
  9. Fahr, René & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2011. "Who follows the crowd—Groups or individuals?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 200-209.
  10. Christoph March, 2011. "Adaptive social learning," PSE Working Papers halshs-00572528, HAL.
  11. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00671378 is not listed on IDEAS
  12. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00572528 is not listed on IDEAS

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3616

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Mark Fallak).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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