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Overconfidence

Author Info

  • Jean-Pierre Benoit
  • Juan Dubra

Abstract

Many studies have shown that people display an apparent overconfidence. In particular, it is common for a majority of people to describe themselves as better than average. The literature takes for granted that this better-than-average effect is problematic. We argue, however, that, even accepting these studies completely on their own terms, there is nothing at all wrong with a strict majority of people rating themselves above the median.

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Paper provided by www.najecon.org in its series NajEcon Working Paper Reviews with number 122247000000002148.

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Date of creation: 05 May 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cla:najeco:122247000000002148
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.najecon.org/

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
  • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
  • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
  • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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  1. Antonio E. Bernardo & Ivo Welch, 2001. "On the Evolution of Overconfidence and Entrepreneurs," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1307, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
  2. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2004. "CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment," NBER Working Papers 10807, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Markus Noeth & Martin Weber, 2000. "Information Aggregation with Random Ordering: Cascades and Overconfidence," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1592, Econometric Society.
  4. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmidt, Ulrich & Brozynski, Torsten, 2006. "The impact of experience on risk taking, overconfidence, and herding of fund managers: Complementary survey evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1753-1766, October.
  5. Alvaro Sandroni & Francesco Squintani, 2007. "Overconfidence, Insurance, and Paternalism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1994-2004, December.
  6. Botond Köszegi, 2006. "Ego Utility, Overconfidence, and Task Choice," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(4), pages 673-707, 06.
  7. Wang, F. Albert, 2001. "Overconfidence, Investor Sentiment, and Evolution," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 138-170, April.
  8. Erik Hoelzl & Aldo Rustichini, 2005. "Overconfident: Do You Put Your Money On It?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(503), pages 305-318, 04.
  9. Diego García & Francesco Sangiorgi & Branko Urošević, 2007. "Overconfidence and Market Efficiency with Heterogeneous Agents," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 30(2), pages 313-336, February.
  10. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
  11. Colin F. Camerer, 1997. "Progress in Behavioral Game Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 167-188, Fall.
  12. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December.
  13. Moore, Don A., 2007. "Not so above average after all: When people believe they are worse than average and its implications for theories of bias in social comparison," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 42-58, January.
  14. Ledyard, John O., 1986. "The scope of the hypothesis of Bayesian equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 59-82, June.
  15. Chuang, Wen-I & Lee, Bong-Soo, 2006. "An empirical evaluation of the overconfidence hypothesis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 2489-2515, September.
  16. 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.
  17. Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Investor attention, overconfidence and category learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 563-602, June.
  18. Kent D. Daniel, 2001. "Overconfidence, Arbitrage, and Equilibrium Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 921-965, 06.
  19. Dan Lovallo & Colin Camerer, 1999. "Overconfidence and Excess Entry: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 306-318, March.
  20. 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.
  21. Camerer, Colin, . "Progress and Behavioral Game Theory," Working Papers 1004, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
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Cited by:

  1. Markus M. Mobius & Muriel Niederle & Paul Niehaus & Tanya Rosenblat, 2011. "Managing self-confidence: theory and experimental evidence," Working Papers 11-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
  2. Cruces, Guillermo & Perez Truglia, Ricardo & Tetaz, Martin, 2011. "Biased Perceptions of Income Distribution and Preferences for Redistribution: Evidence from a Survey Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 5699, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Grieco, Daniela & Hogarth, Robin M., 2009. "Overconfidence in absolute and relative performance: The regression hypothesis and Bayesian updating," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 756-771, October.
  4. Holger Herz & Daniel Schunk & Christian Zehnder, 2013. "How Do Judgmental Overconfidence and Overoptimism Shape Innovative Activity?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4084, CESifo Group Munich.
  5. Jean‐Pierre Benoît & Juan Dubra, 2011. "Apparent Overconfidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1591-1625, 09.
  6. Merkle, Christoph & Weber, Martin, 2011. "True overconfidence: The inability of rational information processing to account for apparent overconfidence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 262-271.
  7. Benoît, Jean-Pierre & Dubra, Juan & Moore, Don, 2009. "Does the Better-Than-Average Effect Show That People Are Overconfident?: An Experiment," MPRA Paper 13168, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  8. Juan Dubra & Rafael Di Tella, 2011. "Free to Punish? The American Dream and the harsh Treatment of Criminals," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1105, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
  9. Ravazzolo, Francesco & Røisland, Øistein, 2011. "Why do people place lower weight on advice far from their own initial opinion?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 63-66, July.
  10. Ertac, Seda, 2011. "Does self-relevance affect information processing? Experimental evidence on the response to performance and non-performance feedback," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 532-545.
  11. Akiko Maruyama, 2010. "Learning about one’s own type in two-sided search," GRIPS Discussion Papers 10-26, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
  12. Néstor Gándelman & Rubén Hernández-Murillo, 2009. "The impact of inflation and unemployment on subjective personal and country evaluations," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 107-126.

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