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Believing in forecasts, uncertainty, and rational expectations

Author

Listed:
  • Efe A. Ok

    (New York University)

  • Andrei Savochkin

    (New Economic School)

Abstract

We model situations of choice under uncertainty where one is exogenously given information about the unknown states as a “suggested prior” (as in weather forecasts, betting odds provided by bookmakers, success likelihoods provided by medical doctors, estimates given by financial analysts, etc.). We wish to understand when a decision maker would adopt the suggested prior as her own subjective beliefs, yielding fully to the power of suggestion. We find that this happens under surprisingly weak conditions: If a preference relation, may it be complete or incomplete, (1) uses the information it is given consistently (in the sense of being state-neutral) and (2) believes that events that are suggested to occur with zero probability will indeed not occur, then it is not only probabilistically sophisticated, but also holds the suggested beliefs as actual beliefs. If the agent is a (subjective) expected utility maximizer, this happens even in the absence of condition (2).

Suggested Citation

  • Efe A. Ok & Andrei Savochkin, 2022. "Believing in forecasts, uncertainty, and rational expectations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(3), pages 947-971, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:74:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00199-021-01387-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-021-01387-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Piazzesi, M. & Schneider, M., 2016. "Housing and Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1547-1640, Elsevier.
    2. Machina, Mark J & Schmeidler, David, 1992. "A More Robust Definition of Subjective Probability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 745-780, July.
    3. Oliver Schirokauer & Joseph B. Kadane, 2007. "Uniform Distributions on the Natural Numbers," Journal of Theoretical Probability, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 429-441, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pei Kuang & Li Tang & Renbin Zhang & Tongbin Zhang, 2025. "Are survey stock price forecasts anchored by fundamental forecasts? A long-run perspective," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 79(2), pages 657-685, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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