IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v62y2016i10p2937-2951.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Quality of Expertise

Author

Listed:
  • Edward D. Van Wesep

    (Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309)

Abstract

Policy makers and managers often turn to experts when in need of information, but we should expect experts to be systematically biased. This is because the decision to research a question implies a belief that research will be fruitful. If priors about the impact of one’s work are correct on average, then those who choose to research a question are optimistic about the quality of their work. The bias varies predictably with attributes of the question being studied. This fact has implications for a variety of mechanism design applications and yields predictions in accordance with a large literature in psychology. This paper was accepted by Teck-Hua Ho, behavioral economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward D. Van Wesep, 2016. "The Quality of Expertise," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(10), pages 2937-2951, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:62:y:2016:i:10:p:2937-2951
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2015.2271
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2271
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2271?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yeon-Koo Che & Navin Kartik, 2009. "Opinions as Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 815-860, October.
    2. Vijay Krishna & John Morgan, 2001. "A Model of Expertise," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 747-775.
    3. Olivier Compte & Andrew Postlewaite, 2004. "Confidence-Enhanced Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1536-1557, December.
    4. Robert J. Aumann & Sergiu Hart, 2003. "Long Cheap Talk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1619-1660, November.
      • Robert J. Aumann & Sergiu Hart, 2002. "Long Cheap Talk," Discussion Paper Series dp284, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, revised Nov 2002.
    5. Luís Santos-Pinto & Joel Sobel, 2005. "A Model of Positive Self-Image in Subjective Assessments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1386-1402, December.
    6. Eric Van den Steen, 2004. "Rational Overoptimism (and Other Biases)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1141-1151, September.
    7. Krishna, Vijay & Morgan, John, 2004. "The art of conversation: eliciting information from experts through multi-stage communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 147-179, August.
    8. Ján Zábojník, 2004. "A model of rational bias in self-assessments," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 23(2), pages 259-282, January.
    9. Jean‐Pierre Benoît & Juan Dubra, 2011. "Apparent Overconfidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1591-1625, September.
    10. Morris, Stephen, 1995. "The Common Prior Assumption in Economic Theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 227-253, October.
    11. Rajiv Sethi & Muhamet Yildiz, 2012. "Public Disagreement," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 57-95, August.
    12. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    13. Eric Van den Steen, 2010. "On the origin of shared beliefs (and corporate culture)," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(4), pages 617-648, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Patrick Afflerbach & Christopher Dun & Henner Gimpel & Dominik Parak & Johannes Seyfried, 2021. "A Simulation-Based Approach to Understanding the Wisdom of Crowds Phenomenon in Aggregating Expert Judgment," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 63(4), pages 329-348, August.
    2. Bradley R. Staats & Diwas S. KC & Francesca Gino, 2018. "Maintaining Beliefs in the Face of Negative News: The Moderating Role of Experience," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 804-824, February.

    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. Markus M. Möbius & Muriel Niederle & Paul Niehaus & Tanya S. Rosenblat, 2022. "Managing Self-Confidence: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 7793-7817, November.
    2. Alonso, Ricardo & Câmara, Odilon, 2016. "Bayesian persuasion with heterogeneous priors," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 672-706.
    3. Balmaceda, Felipe, 2021. "Private vs. public communication: Difference of opinion and reputational concerns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    4. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.
    5. Golosov, Mikhail & Skreta, Vasiliki & Tsyvinski, Aleh & Wilson, Andrea, 2014. "Dynamic strategic information transmission," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 304-341.
    6. Li Hao & Wing Suen, 2009. "Viewpoint: Decision-making in committees," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 359-392, May.
    7. Migrow, Dimitri, 2021. "Designing communication hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    8. Goltsman, Maria & Pavlov, Gregory, 2011. "How to talk to multiple audiences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 100-122, May.
    9. Hestermann, Nina & Le Yaouanq, Yves, 2018. "It\'s not my Fault! Self-Confidence and Experimentation," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 124, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    10. Thakor, Anjan V., 2015. "Strategic information disclosure when there is fundamental disagreement," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 131-153.
    11. Chirantan Ganguly & Indrajit Ray, 2023. "Information revelation and coordination using cheap talk in a game with two-sided private information," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(4), pages 957-992, December.
    12. Ricardo Alonso & Wouter Dessein & Niko Matouschek, 2008. "When Does Coordination Require Centralization?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 145-179, March.
    13. Boleslavsky, Raphael & Lewis, Tracy R., 2016. "Evolving influence: Mitigating extreme conflicts of interest in advisory relationships," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 110-134.
    14. Merkle, Christoph, 2018. "The curious case of negative volatility," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 92-108.
    15. Murali Agastya & Parimal Kanti Bag & Indranil Chakraborty, 2014. "Communication and authority with a partially informed expert," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(1), pages 176-197, March.
    16. Augenblick, Ned & Cunha, Jesse M. & Dal Bó, Ernesto & Rao, Justin M., 2016. "The economics of faith: using an apocalyptic prophecy to elicit religious beliefs in the field," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 38-49.
    17. Bester, Helmut & Strausz, Roland, 2007. "Contracting with imperfect commitment and noisy communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 236-259, September.
    18. Silvia Dominguez‐Martinez & Otto H. Swank, 2009. "A Simple Model of Self‐Assessment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 1225-1241, July.
    19. Li, Zhuozheng & Rantakari, Heikki & Yang, Huanxing, 2016. "Competitive cheap talk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 65-89.
    20. Kovác, Eugen & Mylovanov, Tymofiy, 2009. "Stochastic mechanisms in settings without monetary transfers: The regular case," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1373-1395, July.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:62:y:2016:i:10:p:2937-2951. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.