IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/dyncon/v172y2025ics0165188924001829.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social learning and expectational stability

Author

Listed:
  • Evans, George
  • McGough, Bruce

Abstract

Stability features of social learning (SL) dynamics are examined. We show SL can be formulated as a stochastic recursive algorithm, making it possible to analyze asymptotics using the familiar differential-equation approach. For a simple univariate model, this approach reduces to the E-stability principle, though in prominent instability cases divergence is exceedingly slow compared to adaptive learning (AL). We locate differing fitness criteria as the source of the slower evolution rates of SL compared to AL. Modified AL and SL learning dynamics models are developed and used to illustrate the different implications of policy change in a standard New Keynesian model. We anticipate that the central question going forward will be how best to combine the two approaches when modeling adaptation to structural change.

Suggested Citation

  • Evans, George & McGough, Bruce, 2025. "Social learning and expectational stability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:172:y:2025:i:c:s0165188924001829
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jedc.2024.104990
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188924001829
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jedc.2024.104990?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Evans, George W. & Honkapohja, Seppo, 1996. "Least squares learning with heterogeneous expectations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 197-201, November.
    2. Jasmina Arifovic & James Bullard & Olena Kostyshyna, 2013. "Social Learning and Monetary Policy Rules," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(567), pages 38-76, March.
    3. Evans, George W., 1989. "The fragility of sunspots and bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 297-317, March.
    4. Marcet, Albert & Sargent, Thomas J., 1989. "Convergence of least squares learning mechanisms in self-referential linear stochastic models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 337-368, August.
    5. William A. Branch & George W. Evans, 2011. "Learning about Risk and Return: A Simple Model of Bubbles and Crashes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 159-191, July.
    6. Bullard, James & Mitra, Kaushik, 2002. "Learning about monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1105-1129, September.
    7. Thomas J. Sargent, 2008. "Evolution and Intelligent Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 5-37, March.
    8. Hommes,Cars, 2015. "Behavioral Rationality and Heterogeneous Expectations in Complex Economic Systems," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107564978, Enero-Abr.
    9. George William Evans, 2001. "Expectations in Macroeconomics Adaptive versus Eductive Learning," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 52(3), pages 573-582.
    10. Jasmina Arifovic & Alex Grimaud & Isabelle Salle & Gauthier Vermandel, 2025. "Social Learning and Monetary Policy at the Effective Lower Bound," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(2-3), pages 439-475, March.
    11. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Learning to Believe in Sunspots," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 277-307, March.
    12. George Evans, 1985. "Expectational Stability and the Multiple Equilibria Problem in Linear Rational Expectations Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1217-1233.
    13. Evans, George W. & Honkapohja, Seppo & Marimon, Ramon, 2001. "Convergence In Monetary Inflation Models With Heterogeneous Learning Rules," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, February.
    14. Bullard, James, 2025. "Social learning for the masses," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    15. Sargent, Thomas J., 1993. "Bounded Rationality in Macroeconomics: The Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288695, Decembrie.
    16. Arifovic, Jasmina & Schmitt-Grohé, Stephanie & Uribe, Martín, 2018. "Learning to live in a liquidity trap," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 120-136.
    17. Arifovic, Jasmina & Bullard, James & Duffy, John, 1997. "The Transition from Stagnation to Growth: An Adaptive Learning Approach," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 185-209, July.
    18. Colander,David (ed.), 2006. "Post Walrasian Macroeconomics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521865487, Enero-Abr.
    19. Colander,David (ed.), 2006. "Post Walrasian Macroeconomics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521684200, Enero-Abr.
    20. Jasmina Arifovic & Isabelle Salle & Hung Truong, 2023. "History-Dependent Monetary Regimes: A Lab Experiment and a Henk Model," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-028/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    21. Bray, Margaret M & Savin, Nathan E, 1986. "Rational Expectations Equilibria, Learning, and Model Specification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1129-1160, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hommes, Cars, 2018. "Behavioral & experimental macroeconomics and policy analysis: a complex systems approach," Working Paper Series 2201, European Central Bank.
    2. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja & Kaushik Mitra, 2022. "Expectations, Stagnation, And Fiscal Policy: A Nonlinear Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1397-1425, August.
    3. Grimaud, Alex & Salle, Isabelle & Vermandel, Gauthier, 2025. "A Dynare toolbox for social learning expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    4. Chryssi Giannitsarou, 2003. "Heterogeneous Learning," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(4), pages 885-906, October.
    5. Evans, David & Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2022. "The RPEs of RBCs and other DSGEs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    6. Albert Marcet & Juan P. Nicolini, 2003. "Recurrent Hyperinflations and Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1476-1498, December.
    7. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2020. "Stable near-rational sunspot equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    8. Hommes, Cars & Zhu, Mei, 2014. "Behavioral learning equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 778-814.
    9. Cars Hommes, 2017. "From Self-Fulfilling Mistakes to Behavioral Learning Equilibria," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Kazuo Nishimura & Alain Venditti & Nicholas C. Yannelis (ed.), Sunspots and Non-Linear Dynamics, chapter 0, pages 97-123, Springer.
    10. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2009. "Expectations, Learning and Monetary Policy: An Overview of Recent Research," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 2, pages 027-076, Central Bank of Chile.
    11. Wenzelburger, Jan, 2006. "Learning in linear models with expectational leads," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(7-8), pages 854-884, November.
    12. Bao, Te & Dai, Yun & Duffy, John, 2025. "Least squares learning? Evidence from the laboratory," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    13. Pei Kuang, 2014. "Learning Dynamics with Data (Quasi-) Differencing," Discussion Papers 15-06, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    14. Guse, Eran A., 2005. "Stability properties for learning with heterogeneous expectations and multiple equilibria," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 1623-1642, October.
    15. Guse, Eran A., 2010. "Heterogeneous expectations, adaptive learning, and evolutionary dynamics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(1-2), pages 42-57, May.
    16. Seppo Honkapohja & Kaushik Mitra, 2006. "Learning Stability in Economies with Heterogeneous Agents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(2), pages 284-309, April.
    17. Troy Tassier, 2013. "Handbook of Research on Complexity, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Edward Elgar," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 132-133.
    18. Petia Ivanova, 2007. "The Fiscal Theory for the Cost Level and Monetarism," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 60-79.
    19. Antonio Doria, Francisco, 2011. "J.B. Rosser Jr. , Handbook of Research on Complexity, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK--Northampton, MA, USA (2009) 436 + viii pp., index, ISBN 978 1 84542 089 5 (cased)," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 196-204, April.
    20. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja & Kaushik Mitra, 2012. "Does Ricardian Equivalence Hold When Expectations Are Not Rational?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1259-1283, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social learning; E-stability; Bounded rationality; Heterogeneous expectations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:172:y:2025:i:c:s0165188924001829. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jedc .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.