IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc13/79900.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Correlation Neglect in Belief Formation

Author

Listed:
  • Enke, Benjamin
  • Zimmermann, Florian

Abstract

A frequent feature of information structures is that they generate signals which are not mutually independent, but rather rely on a common set of underlying information. Using a simple experimental design, we show that in such contexts many people neglect correlations in the updating process, leading to systematically "overshooting" beliefs. This finding lends direct support to recent models of boundedly rational learning in social networks. In an experimental market setting, correlation neglect not only drives overoptimism and overpessimism at the individual level, but also affects aggregate outcomes in a systematic manner. In particular, the excessive confidence swings produced by correlated information structures translate into predictable price bubbles and crashes. Finally, we show the robustness of correlation neglect in a naturally occurring informational environment, in which subjects predict GDP growth on the basis of real news reports.

Suggested Citation

  • Enke, Benjamin & Zimmermann, Florian, 2013. "Correlation Neglect in Belief Formation," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79900, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79900
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/79900/1/VfS_2013_pid_116.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ananda Ganguly & John Kagel & Donald Moser, 2000. "Do Asset Market Prices Reflect Traders' Judgment Biases?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 219-245, May.
    2. George A. Akerlof, 2009. "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1175-1175.
    3. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2012. "Salience Theory of Choice Under Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1243-1285.
    4. Grebe, Tim & Schmid, Julia & Stiehler, Andreas, 2008. "Do individuals recognize cascade behavior of others? - An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 197-209, April.
    5. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:969-998 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Uri Gneezy & Arie Kapteyn & Jan Potters, 2003. "Evaluation Periods and Asset Prices in a Market Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 821-837, April.
    7. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    8. Oechssler, Jörg & Roider, Andreas & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2009. "Cognitive abilities and behavioral biases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 147-152, October.
    9. Dorothea Kübler & Georg Weizsäcker, 2005. "Are Longer Cascades More Stable?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 330-339, 04/05.
    10. Stefano DellaVigna & Matthew Gentzkow, 2010. "Persuasion: Empirical Evidence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 643-669, September.
    11. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE 2.0 - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Working Paper Series in Economics 10, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    12. Peter M. DeMarzo & Dimitri Vayanos & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 2003. "Persuasion Bias, Social Influence, and Unidimensional Opinions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 909-968.
    13. Corazzini, Luca & Pavesi, Filippo & Petrovich, Beatrice & Stanca, Luca, 2012. "Influential listeners: An experiment on persuasion bias in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1276-1288.
    14. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    15. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:2:p:821-838 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Camerer, Colin F, 1987. "Do Biases in Probability Judgment Matter in Markets? Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 981-997, December.
    17. Smith, Vernon L & Suchanek, Gerry L & Williams, Arlington W, 1988. "Bubbles, Crashes, and Endogenous Expectations in Experimental Spot Asset Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1119-1151, September.
    18. Forsythe, Robert & Forrest Nelson & George R. Neumann & Jack Wright, 1992. "Anatomy of an Experimental Political Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1142-1161, December.
    19. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2003-10, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    20. repec:pri:metric:wp047_2012_brunnermeier_ssrn-id2103814.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Grebe, Tim & Schmid, Julia & Stiehler, Andreas, 2006. "Do individuals recognize cascade behavior of others? An experimental study," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2006-079, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    22. Reinhard Selten, 1998. "Axiomatic Characterization of the Quadratic Scoring Rule," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 43-61, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ciril Bosch-Rosa & Thomas Meissner & Antoni Bosch-Domènech, 2018. "Cognitive bubbles," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 132-153, March.
    2. Mayhew, Brian W. & Vitalis, Adam, 2014. "Myopic loss aversion and market experience," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 113-125.
    3. M. Bigoni & D. Dragone, 2011. "An experiment on experimental instructions," Working Papers wp794, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    4. Utz Weitzel & Christoph Huber & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Julia Rose & Lauren Cohen, 2020. "Bubbles and Financial Professionals," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(6), pages 2659-2696.
    5. Dirk-Jan Janssen & Sascha Füllbrunn & Utz Weitzel, 2019. "Individual speculative behavior and overpricing in experimental asset markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(3), pages 653-675, September.
    6. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas, 2014. "Informational asymmetries in laboratory asset markets with state-dependent fundamentals," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 207, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. Berninghaus, Siegfried K. & Haller, Sven & Krüger, Tyll & Neumann, Thomas & Schosser, Stephan & Vogt, Bodo, 2013. "Risk attitude, beliefs, and information in a Corruption Game – An experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 46-60.
    8. Battiston, Pietro & Stanca, Luca, 2015. "Boundedly rational opinion dynamics in social networks: Does indegree matter?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 400-421.
    9. Claudia Keser & Andreas Markstädter, 2014. "Informational Asymmetries in Laboratory Asset Markets with State-Dependent Fundamentals," CIRANO Working Papers 2014s-30, CIRANO.
    10. Janssen, Dirk-Jan & Weitzel, Utz & Füllbrunn, Sascha, 2015. "Speculative Bubbles - An introduction and application of the Speculation Elicitation Task (SET)," MPRA Paper 63028, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Ackert, Lucy F. & Kluger, Brian D. & Qi, Li, 2012. "Irrationality and beliefs in a laboratory asset market: Is it me or is it you?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 278-291.
    12. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas, 2014. "Informational asymmetries in laboratory asset markets with state-dependent fundamentals," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 207 [rev.], University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    13. Thomas Neumann & Bodo Vogt, 2009. "Do Players’ Beliefs or Risk Attitudes Determine The Equilibrium Selections in 2x2 Coordination Games?," FEMM Working Papers 09024, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    14. Cueva, Carlos & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo & Ponti, Giovanni & Tomás, Josefa, 2019. "Boys will still be boys: Gender differences in trading activity are not due to differences in (over)confidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 100-120.
    15. Feri, Francesco & Meléndez-Jiménez, Miguel A. & Ponti, Giovanni & Vega-Redondo, Fernando & Yu, Haihan, 2020. "Pooling or fooling? An experiment on signaling," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 582-596.
    16. Li, Ying Xue & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2020. "Strategic reasoning in persuasion games: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 329-367.
    17. Peter Bardsley & Nisvan Erkal & Nikos Nikiforakis & Tom Wilkening, 2011. "Recursive Contracts, Firm Longevity, and Rat Races: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1122, The University of Melbourne, revised 2011.
    18. Guidon Fenig & Mariya Mileva & Luba Petersen, 2013. "Asset Trading and Monetary Policy in Production Economies," Discussion Papers dp13-08, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, revised Aug 2014.
    19. Mueller-Frank, Manuel & Arieliy, Itai, 2015. "A General Model of Boundedly Rational Observational Learning: Theory and Experiment," IESE Research Papers D/1120, IESE Business School.
    20. Markstädter, Andreas & Keser, Claudia, 2014. "Informational Asymmetries in Laboratory Asset Markets with State Dependent Fundamentals," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100359, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:vfsc13:79900. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.