Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Taking the Road Less Traveled: Does Conversation Eradicate Pernicious Cascades?

Contents:

Author Info

  • Henry Cao

    (University of North Carolina)

  • David Hirshleifer

    (Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University)

Abstract

We offer a model in which sequences of individuals often converge upon poor decisions and are prone to fads, despite being able to communicate both past payoff outcomes and the private signals underlying past choices. This reflects direct and indirect action-based informational externalities; and conversational externalities - the failure of individuals to take into account the benefits their conversations confer upon later individuals. In contrast with previous cascades literature, cascades here are spontaneously dislodged and in general have a probability less than one of lasting forever. Furthermore, the ability of individuals to communicate can reduce average decision accuracy and welfare.

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://128.118.178.162/eps/game/papers/0412/0412001.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Game Theory and Information with number 0412001.

as in new window
Length: 25 pages
Date of creation: 04 Dec 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:0412001

Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 25. PDF
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://128.118.178.162

Related research

Keywords: informational cascades; social learning; herding; social efficiency;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9142, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  2. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 2005. "Information Cascades and Observational Learning," Working Paper Series 2005-22, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.

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:wpa:wuwpga:0412001

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

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.