Informational cascades in the laboratory: Do they occur for the right reasons?
Abstract
Recently, the theory of informational cascades has been tested in an experiment by Anderson and Holt (1997) who report that their data support the theory amazingly well. In this note we report on an experiment designed to find out whether observed cascades are indeed due to rational Bayesian updating. However, we find little support for rational updating. The simple heuristic "follow your own signal" does much better in explaining our data than Bayesian rationality.Download Info
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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Experimental with number 9901001.Length: 9 pages
Date of creation: 25 Jan 1999
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpex:9901001
Note: pages: 9
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Web page: http://128.118.178.162
Related research
Keywords: herding; information cascades; experiments.;Other versions of this item:
- 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.
- C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
- D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-1999-02-15 (All new papers)
- NEP-EXP-1999-02-15 (Experimental Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. " Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
- Selten, Reinhard & Abbink, Klaus & Buchta, Joachim & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2003.
"How to play (3 x 3)-games.: A strategy method experiment,"
Games and Economic Behavior,
Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 19-37, October.
- Reinhard Selten & Klaus Abbink & Joachim Buchta & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2000. "How to Play 3x3-Games A Strategy Method Experiment," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers bgse3_2001, University of Bonn, Germany.
- Selten, R. & Abbink, K. & Buchta, J. & Sadrieh, A., 2002. "How to Play 3x3 Games: A Strategy Method Experiment," Discussion Paper 2002-39, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
- Banerjee, Abhijit V, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817, August.
- Friedman, Daniel, 1998. "Monty Hall's Three Doors: Construction and Deconstruction of a Choice Anomaly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 933-46, September.
- Anderson, Lisa R & Holt, Charles A, 1997. "Information Cascades in the Laboratory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 847-62, December.
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