IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/8879.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Overconfidence?

Author

Listed:
  • Benoît, Jean-Pierre
  • Dubra, Juan

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Benoît, Jean-Pierre & Dubra, Juan, 2008. "Overconfidence?," MPRA Paper 8879, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:8879
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8879/1/MPRA_paper_8879.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2005. "CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2661-2700, December.
    4. Antonio E. Bernardo & Ivo Welch, 2001. "On the Evolution of Overconfidence and Entrepreneurs," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 301-330, September.
    5. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2005. "Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation," International Economic Association Series, in: Bina Agarwal & Alessandro Vercelli (ed.), Psychology, Rationality and Economic Behaviour, chapter 2, pages 19-57, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. 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.
    7. Eric Van den Steen, 2004. "Rational Overoptimism (and Other Biases)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1141-1151, September.
    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. Colin F. Camerer, 1997. "Progress in Behavioral Game Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 167-188, Fall.
    10. Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Investor attention, overconfidence and category learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 563-602, June.
    11. 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.
    12. Bruno Biais & Denis Hilton & Karine Mazurier & Sébastien Pouget, 2005. "Judgemental Overconfidence, Self-Monitoring, and Trading Performance in an Experimental Financial Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 287-312.
    13. Alvaro Sandroni & Francesco Squintani, 2007. "Overconfidence, Insurance, and Paternalism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1994-2004, December.
    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. 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.
    16. Erik Hoelzl & Aldo Rustichini, 2005. "Overconfident: Do You Put Your Money On It?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(503), pages 305-318, April.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Botond Köszegi, 2006. "Ego Utility, Overconfidence, and Task Choice," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(4), pages 673-707, June.
    20. 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.
    21. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    22. Wang, F. Albert, 2001. "Overconfidence, Investor Sentiment, and Evolution," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 138-170, April.
    23. Kent D. Daniel & David Hirshleifer & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2001. "Overconfidence, Arbitrage, and Equilibrium Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 921-965, June.
    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. Herz, Holger & Schunk, Daniel & Zehnder, Christian, 2014. "How do judgmental overconfidence and overoptimism shape innovative activity?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1-23.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Jean‐Pierre Benoît & Juan Dubra, 2011. "Apparent Overconfidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1591-1625, September.
    5. 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.
    6. 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..
    7. 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.
    8. Cruces, Guillermo & Perez-Truglia, Ricardo & Tetaz, Martin, 2013. "Biased perceptions of income distribution and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 100-112.
    9. 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.
    10. Akiko Maruyama, 2010. "Learning about one’s own type in two-sided search," GRIPS Discussion Papers 10-26, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    11. Nestor Gandelman & Ruben Hernandez-Murillo, 2009. "The impact of inflation and unemployment on subjective personal and country evaluations," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 91(May), pages 107-126.
    12. 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.

    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. Jean‐Pierre Benoît & Juan Dubra, 2011. "Apparent Overconfidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1591-1625, September.
    2. Jean-Pierre Benoît & Juan Dubra & Don A. Moore, 2015. "Does The Better-Than-Average Effect Show That People Are Overconfident?: Two Experiments," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 293-329, April.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Heger, Stephanie A. & Papageorge, Nicholas W., 2018. "We should totally open a restaurant: How optimism and overconfidence affect beliefs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 177-190.
    7. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Development of the overconfidence measurement instrument for the economic experiment," MPRA Paper 34799, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2011.
    8. Esra Alp Coşkun & Hakan Kahyaoglu & Chi Keung Marco Lau, 2023. "Which return regime induces overconfidence behavior? Artificial intelligence and a nonlinear approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-34, December.
    9. Helen X. H. Bao & Steven Haotong Li, 2016. "Overconfidence And Real Estate Research: A Survey Of The Literature," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(04), pages 1-24, September.
    10. Dorota Skała, 2008. "Overconfidence in Psychology and Finance – an Interdisciplinary Literature Review," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 39(4), pages 33-50.
    11. 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.
    12. Yong-Ho Cheon & Kuan-Hui Lee, 2018. "Maxing Out Globally: Individualism, Investor Attention, and the Cross Section of Expected Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5807-5831, December.
    13. Bunzel, Helle & Marcoul, Philippe, 2008. "Can racially unbiased police perpetuate long-run discrimination?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 36-47, October.
    14. Kourtidis, Dimitrios & Šević, Željko & Chatzoglou, Prodromos, 2011. "Investors’ trading activity: A behavioural perspective and empirical results," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 548-557.
    15. Caliendo, Frank & Huang, Kevin X.D., 2008. "Overconfidence and consumption over the life cycle," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1347-1369, December.
    16. Sandroni, Alvaro & Squintani, Francesco, 2013. "Overconfidence and asymmetric information: The case of insurance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 149-165.
    17. Laura Abrardi & Luca Colombo & Piero Tedeschi, 2019. "The Gains of Ignoring Risk: Insurance with Better Informed Principals," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def084, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    18. V. Bhaskar & Caroline Thomas, 2019. "The Culture of Overconfidence," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 95-110, June.
    19. Jonathan F Schulz & Christian Thöni, 2016. "Overconfidence and Career Choice," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, January.
    20. Banerjee, Ritwik & Gupta, Nabanita Datta & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2020. "Feedback spillovers across tasks, self-confidence and competitiveness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 127-170.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overconfidence; Better than Average; Experimental Economics; Irrationality; Signalling Models;
    All these keywords.

    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

    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:pra:mprapa:8879. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.