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At Least Do No Harm: The Use of Scarce Data

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  • Alvaro Sandroni

Abstract

When data is scarce, it is difficult to screen the opinions of informed and uninformed experts. In spite of this difficulty it is possible to deliver incentives for informed experts to honestly reveal their views, and for uninformed experts to do no harm to a principal in the sense that uninformed experts report the view the principal held originally (i.e., without the expert's report). This follows even if there is only a single data point to evaluate the expert's opinions and the expert's preferences over risk are unknown.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvaro Sandroni, 2014. "At Least Do No Harm: The Use of Scarce Data," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 1-3, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:6:y:2014:i:1:p:1-3
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.6.1.1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sylvain Chassang, 2013. "Calibrated Incentive Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(5), pages 1935-1971, September.
    2. Alvaro Sandroni & Eran Shmaya, 2013. "Eliciting beliefs by paying in chance," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 1(1), pages 33-37, May.
    3. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    4. Edi Karni, 2009. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 603-606, March.
    5. Alvaro Sandroni & Eran Shmaya, 2013. "Eliciting Beliefs by Paying in Chance," Discussion Papers 1565, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    6. Wojciech Olszewski & Marcin Pęski, 2011. "The Principal-Agent Approach to Testing Experts," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 89-113, May.
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. “At Least Do No Harm: The Use of Scarce Data,” A. Sandroni (2014)
      by afinetheorem in A Fine Theorem on 2014-04-03 11:31:41

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    Cited by:

    1. Francisco Barreras, 2017. "Screening Multiple Uninformed Experts," Documentos de Trabajo 15282, Quantil.
    2. David Lagziel & Ehud Lehrer, 2021. "Transferable deposits as a screening mechanism," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(2), pages 483-504, March.
    3. Francisco Barreras & Álvaro José Riascos Villegas, 2016. "Screening multiple potentially false experts," Monografías 18207, Quantil.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

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