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Inferring beliefs from actions

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  • Arieli, Itai
  • Mueller-Frank, Manuel

Abstract

We address the question to which degree the private information of a decision maker is revealed through his optimal action, in an environment with compact metrizable state and action space. We show that the decision maker's optimal action reveals his posterior distribution for a generic set of continuous utility functions if and only if the set of actions contains no isolated points.

Suggested Citation

  • Arieli, Itai & Mueller-Frank, Manuel, 2017. "Inferring beliefs from actions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 455-461.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:102:y:2017:i:c:p:455-461
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.014
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    7. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Elchanan Mossel & Allan Sly & Omer Tamuz, 2015. "Strategic Learning and the Topology of Social Networks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 1755-1794, September.
    2. Itai Arieli & Manuel Mueller-Frank, 2019. "Multidimensional Social Learning," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(3), pages 913-940.
    3. Mueller-Frank, Manuel & Arieliy, Itai, 2015. "A General Model of Boundedly Rational Observational Learning: Theory and Experiment," IESE Research Papers D/1120, IESE Business School.
    4. Ali, S. Nageeb, 2018. "On the role of responsiveness in rational herds," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 79-82.
    5. Alex Centeno, 2022. "A Structural Model for Detecting Communities in Networks," Papers 2209.08380, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    6. Pooya Molavi & Ceyhun Eksin & Alejandro Ribeiro & Ali Jadbabaie, 2016. "Learning to Coordinate in Social Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 605-621, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Belief revelation; Information aggregation; Learning; Scoring rules;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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