Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Overconfidence and risk dispersion

Contents:

Author Info

  • Heller, Yuval

Abstract

Experimental evidence suggests that people tend to be overconfident in the sense that they overestimate the accuracy of their own predictions. In this paper we present a simple principal-agent model in which principal's interest in dispersing risk motivates him to hire overconfident agents. We show that the induced overconfidence satisfies experimental stylized facts (such as, hard-easy effect, false certainty effect and underuse of base rates). In addition, we show that overconfidence is a unique stable evolutionary strategy, and that it can Pareto-improve social welfare. Finally, we demonstrate applicability by: 1) demonstrating why CEOs hire overconfident intermediate managers, and 2) explaining why investors prefer overconfident entrepreneurs.

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://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/25893/
File Function: original version
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/26161/
File Function: revised version
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/27554/
File Function: revised version
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/33816/
File Function: revised version
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/44469/
File Function: revised version
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 25893.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 26 Sep 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25893

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Schackstr. 4, D-80539 Munich, Germany
Phone: +49-(0)89-2180-2219
Fax: +49-(0)89-2180-3900
Web page: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: overconfidence; risk dispersion; hard-easy effect; evolutionary stability;

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. Simon Gervais & Terrance Odean, . "Learning To Be Overconfident," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 05-97, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
  2. Skala, Dorota, 2008. "Overconfidence in Psychology and Finance – an Interdisciplinary Literature Review," MPRA Paper 26386, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Bruce A. Weinberg, 2009. "A Model Of Overconfidence," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(4), pages 502-515, October.
  4. David V. Budescu & Ning Du, 2007. "Coherence and Consistency of Investors' Probability Judgments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(11), pages 1731-1744, November.
  5. Robson, Arthur J., 1996. "A Biological Basis for Expected and Non-expected Utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 397-424, February.
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 in new window

Cited by:
  1. Frenkel, Sivan & Heller, Yuval & Teper, Roee, 2012. "Endowment as a blessing," MPRA Paper 39430, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 2012.

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:pra:mprapa:25893

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

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.