IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v121y2025ics0304406825001016.html

Censored beliefs and wishful thinking

Author

Listed:
  • Burgh, Jarrod
  • Melo, Emerson

Abstract

We present a model that elucidates wishful thinking by incorporating both the costs and benefits of biased beliefs. We show that wishful thinking can be characterized as equivalent to superquantile-utility maximization within the class of threshold belief-distortion cost functions. This equivalence implies that wishful thinking leads decision-makers to prefer options with greater skewness and higher risk. Finally, we demonstrate how our framework enables the analysis of optimistic stochastic choice and optimistic risk aversion.

Suggested Citation

  • Burgh, Jarrod & Melo, Emerson, 2025. "Censored beliefs and wishful thinking," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:121:y:2025:i:c:s0304406825001016
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2025.103184
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406825001016
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2025.103184?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Caplin & Daniel Martin, 2015. "A Testable Theory of Imperfect Perception," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(582), pages 184-202, February.
    2. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel A. Ballester, 2018. "Monotone Stochastic Choice Models: The Case of Risk and Time Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 74-106.
    3. Manski, Charles F., 1986. "Ordinal Utility Models Of Decision Making Under Uncertainty," SSRI Workshop Series 292682, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Social Systems Research Institute.
    4. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2006. "Ambiguity Aversion, Robustness, and the Variational Representation of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1447-1498, November.
    5. Roland Bénabou, 2013. "Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(2), pages 429-462.
    6. Thomas Astebro & Holger Herz & Ramana Nanda & Roberto A. Weber, 2014. "Seeking the Roots of Entrepreneurship: Insights from Behavioral Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 49-70, Summer.
    7. Akerlof, George A & Dickens, William T, 1982. "The Economic Consequences of Cognitive Dissonance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 307-319, June.
    8. Hirshleifer, David & Daniel, Kent, 2015. "Overconfident investors, predictable returns, and excessive trading," MPRA Paper 69002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Hakan J. Holm & Sonja Opper & Victor Nee, 2013. "Entrepreneurs Under Uncertainty: An Economic Experiment in China," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(7), pages 1671-1687, July.
    10. Lars Peter Hansen & Thomas J Sargent, 2014. "Robust Control and Model Uncertainty," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: UNCERTAINTY WITHIN ECONOMIC MODELS, chapter 5, pages 145-154, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Jonathan A. Parker, 2005. "Optimal Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1092-1118, September.
    12. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2015. "Behavioral CEOs: The Role of Managerial Overconfidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 37-60, Fall.
    13. Daniel F. Stone & Daniel H. Wood, 2018. "Cognitive dissonance, motivated reasoning, and confirmation bias: applications in industrial organization," Chapters, in: Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization, chapter 5, pages 114-137, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Bengtsson, Ola & Ekeblom, Daniel, 2014. "The Bright but Right View? A New Type of Evidence on Entrepreneurial Optimism," Working Paper Series 1008, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    15. Christopher P. Chambers, 2009. "An Axiomatization Of Quantiles On The Domain Of Distribution Functions," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 335-342, April.
    16. Luciano Castro & Antonio F. Galvao, 2022. "Static and dynamic quantile preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(2), pages 747-779, April.
    17. Emily Oster & Ira Shoulson & E. Ray Dorsey, 2016. "Optimal Expectations and Limited Medical Testing: Evidence from Huntington Disease: Corrigendum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1562-1565, June.
    18. Luciano de Castro & Antonio F. Galvao, 2019. "Dynamic Quantile Models of Rational Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(6), pages 1893-1939, November.
    19. Jan B. Engelmann & Maël Lebreton & Nahuel A. Salem-Garcia & Peter Schwardmann & Joël J. van der Weele, 2024. "Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(4), pages 926-960, April.
    20. Parker,Simon C., 2009. "The Economics of Entrepreneurship," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521728355, March.
    21. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2016. "Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 141-164, Summer.
    22. Strzalecki,Tomasz, 2025. "Stochastic Choice Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781009512763, August.
    23. Kovach, Matthew, 2020. "Twisting the truth: foundations of wishful thinking," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(3), July.
    24. Kent Daniel & David Hirshleifer, 2015. "Overconfident Investors, Predictable Returns, and Excessive Trading," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 61-88, Fall.
    25. Michael D. Grubb, 2015. "Overconfident Consumers in the Marketplace," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 9-36, Fall.
    26. Puri, Manju & Robinson, David T., 2007. "Optimism and economic choice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 71-99, October.
    27. Parker,Simon C., 2009. "The Economics of Entrepreneurship," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521899604, March.
    28. Ahn, Taehyun, 2010. "Attitudes toward risk and self-employment of young workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 434-442, April.
    29. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    30. Marzena Rostek, 2010. "Quantile Maximization in Decision Theory ," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(1), pages 339-371.
    31. Menon, Geeta & Kyung, Ellie J. & Agrawal, Nidhi, 2009. "Biases in social comparisons: Optimism or pessimism?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 39-52, January.
    32. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01155313 is not listed on IDEAS
    33. Bracha, Anat & Brown, Donald J., 2012. "Affective decision making: A theory of optimism bias," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 67-80.
    34. Rockafellar, R. Tyrrell & Uryasev, Stanislav, 2002. "Conditional value-at-risk for general loss distributions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1443-1471, July.
    35. Bengtsson, Ola & Ekeblom, Daniel, 2014. "The Bright but Right View? New Evidence on Entrepreneurial Optimism," Working Papers 2014:1, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    36. Bresnahan, Timothy F. & Reiss, Peter C., 1991. "Empirical models of discrete games," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1-2), pages 57-81.
    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. Jarrod Burgh & Emerson Melo, 2024. "Censored Beliefs and Wishful Thinking," Papers 2402.01892, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2025.
    2. Jarrod Burgh & Emerson Melo, 2023. "Wishful Thinking is Risky Thinking," Papers 2307.02422, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    3. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr & Tina Xu, 2017. "Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature," NBER Working Papers 24097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Peng Liu & Tiantian Mao & Ruodu Wang, 2024. "Quantiles under ambiguity and risk sharing," Papers 2412.19546, arXiv.org.
    5. de Meza, David & Dawson, Christopher & Henley, Andrew & Arabsheibani, G. Reza, 2019. "Curb your enthusiasm: Optimistic entrepreneurs earn less," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 53-69.
    6. Pushkar Maitra & Ananta Neelim, 2021. "Behavioural characteristics, stability of preferences and entrepreneurial success," Chapters, in: Ananish Chaudhuri (ed.), A Research Agenda for Experimental Economics, chapter 5, pages 93-118, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Bolte, Lukas & Fan, Tony Q., 2024. "Motivated mislearning: The case of correlation neglect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 647-663.
    8. Castro, Luciano de & Galvao, Antonio F. & Kim, Jeong Yeol & Montes-Rojas, Gabriel & Olmo, Jose, 2022. "Experiments on portfolio selection: A comparison between quantile preferences and expected utility decision models," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    9. de Castro, Luciano & Galvao, Antonio F. & Noussair, Charles N. & Qiao, Liang, 2022. "Do people maximize quantiles?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 22-40.
    10. Michele Dell'Era & Luca David Opromolla & Luis Santos-Pinto, 2018. "A General Equilibrium Theory of Occupational Choice under Optimistic Beliefs about Entrepreneurial Ability," GEE Papers 0111, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Oct 2018.
    11. Luciano Castro & Antonio F. Galvao, 2022. "Static and dynamic quantile preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(2), pages 747-779, April.
    12. Stephen L. Cheung & Lachlan Johnstone, 2025. "True overconfidence, revealed through actions: An experiment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 171-199, April.
    13. Michele Dell'Era & Luca David Opromolla & Luís Santos‐Pinto, 2023. "Can optimism solve the entrepreneurial earnings puzzle?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(1), pages 139-169, January.
    14. Victor Augias & Daniel M. A. Barreto, 2020. "Persuading a Wishful Thinker," Papers 2011.13846, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    15. Coutts, Alexander, 2019. "Testing models of belief bias: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 549-565.
    16. Cueva, Carlos & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo, 2025. "Motivated beliefs about stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    17. Derek Lemoine, 2025. "Rationally misplaced confidence," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 80(1), pages 1-38, August.
    18. de Castro, Luciano & Galvao, Antonio F. & Muchon, Andre, 2023. "Numerical Solution of Dynamic Quantile Models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    19. Luciano de Castro & Antonio F. Galvao & Gabriel Montes-Rojas & Jose Olmo, 2022. "Portfolio selection in quantile decision models," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 133-181, June.
    20. Steven Kou & Xianhua Peng, 2016. "On the Measurement of Economic Tail Risk," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 1056-1072, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    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:mateco:v:121:y:2025:i:c:s0304406825001016. 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/jmateco .

    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.