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"Do We Follow Others when We Should? A Simple Test of Rational Expectations": Comment

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Ziegelmeyer

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)

  • Christoph March

    (Paris School of Economics)

  • Sebastian Krügel

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, IMPRS "Uncertainty")

Abstract

Weizsäcker (2010) estimates the payoff of actions to test rational expectations and to measure the success of social learning in information cascade experiments. He concludes that participants perform poorly when learning from others and that rational expectations are violated. We show that his estimated payoffs rely on estimates of the publicly known prior and signal qualities which may lead the formulated test of rational expectations to generate false positives. We rely on the true values of the prior and signal qualities to estimate the payoff of actions. We confirm that the rational expectations hypothesis is rejected, but we measure a much larger success of social learning.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Ziegelmeyer & Christoph March & Sebastian Krügel, 2012. ""Do We Follow Others when We Should? A Simple Test of Rational Expectations": Comment," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-006, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    • Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2012-006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mathias Drehmann & Jörg Oechssler & Andreas Roider, 2005. "Herding and Contrarian Behavior in Financial Markets: An Internet Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1403-1426, December.
    2. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2005. "Herd Behavior in a Laboratory Financial Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1427-1443, December.
    3. Markus Noth & Martin Weber, 2003. "Information Aggregation with Random Ordering: Cascades and Overconfidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 166-189, January.
    4. Georg Weizsacker, 2010. "Do We Follow Others When We Should? A Simple Test of Rational Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2340-2360, December.
    5. Angela A. Hung & Charles R. Plott, 2001. "Information Cascades: Replication and an Extension to Majority Rule and Conformity-Rewarding Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1508-1520, December.
    6. Fahr, René & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2011. "Who follows the crowd—Groups or individuals?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 200-209.
    7. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    8. Dorothea Kübler & Georg Weizsäcker, 2004. "Limited Depth of Reasoning and Failure of Cascade Formation in the Laboratory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 425-441.
    9. Dominitz, Jeff & Hung, Angela A., 2009. "Empirical models of discrete choice and belief updating in observational learning experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 94-109, February.
    10. Christoph March & Sebastian Krügel & Anthony Ziegelmeyer, 2012. "Do We Follow Private Information when We Should? Laboratory Evidence on Naive Herding," PSE Working Papers halshs-00671378, HAL.
    11. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2007. "Information Cascades: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 151-180, February.
    12. Anthony Ziegelmeyer & Frédéric Koessler & Juergen Bracht & Eyal Winter, 2010. "Fragility of information cascades: an experimental study using elicited beliefs," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(2), pages 121-145, June.
    13. Rosenthal, Robert W, 1989. "A Bounded-Rationality Approach to the Study of Noncooperative Games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 18(3), pages 273-291.
    14. Rogers, Brian W. & Palfrey, Thomas R. & Camerer, Colin F., 2009. "Heterogeneous quantal response equilibrium and cognitive hierarchies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1440-1467, July.
    15. Richard Mckelvey & Thomas Palfrey, 1998. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Extensive Form Games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 9-41, June.
    16. John Shea, 1997. "Instrument Relevance in Multivariate Linear Models: A Simple Measure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 348-352, May.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Christoph March & Sebastian Krügel & Anthony Ziegelmeyer, 2012. "Do We Follow Private Information when We Should? Laboratory Evidence on Naive Herding," Working Papers halshs-00671378, HAL.
    2. Roberta De Filippis & Antonio Guarino & Philippe Jehiel & Toru Kitagawa, 2016. "Updating ambiguous beliefs in a social learning experiment," CeMMAP working papers 18/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. March, Christoph & Ziegelmeyer, Anthony, 2020. "Altruistic observational learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    4. Sebastian Berger & Christoph Feldhaus & Axel Ockenfels, 2018. "A shared identity promotes herding in an information cascade game," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(1), pages 63-72, July.
    5. Wenbo Zou & Xue Xu, 2023. "Ingroup bias in a social learning experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(1), pages 27-54, March.
    6. Duffy, John & Hopkins, Ed & Kornienko, Tatiana, 2021. "Lone wolf or herd animal? Information choice and learning from others," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Christoph March & Anthony Ziegelmeyer, 2018. "Excessive Herding in the Laboratory: The Role of Intuitive Judgments," CESifo Working Paper Series 6855, CESifo.
    8. Van Parys, Jessica & Ash, Elliott, 2018. "Sequential decision-making with group identity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1-18.
    9. Duffy, John & Hopkins, Ed & Kornienko, Tatiana & Ma, Mingye, 2019. "Information choice in a social learning experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 295-315.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information Cascades; Laboratory Experiments; Quantal Response Equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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