IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/econwp/334.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Timing of predictions in dynamic cheap talk: experts vs. quacks

Author

Listed:
  • Aleksei Smirnov
  • Egor Starkov

Abstract

The paper studies a dynamic communication game in the presence of adverse selection and career concerns. A forecaster of privately known competence, who cares about his reputation, chooses the timing of the forecast regarding the outcome of some future event. We find that in all equilibria in a sufficiently general class earlier reports are more credible. Further, any report hurts the forecaster’s reputation in the short run, with later reports incurring larger penalties. The reputation of a silent forecaster, on the other hand, gradually improves over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Aleksei Smirnov & Egor Starkov, 2019. "Timing of predictions in dynamic cheap talk: experts vs. quacks," ECON - Working Papers 334, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:zur:econwp:334
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.uzh.ch/static/wp/econwp334.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Viral V. Acharya & Peter DeMarzo & Ilan Kremer, 2011. "Endogenous Information Flows and the Clustering of Announcements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2955-2979, December.
    2. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter Norman, 2006. "The strategy of professional forecasting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 441-466, August.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2019. "Information Design: A Unified Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(1), pages 44-95, March.
    4. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June.
    5. Mikhail Drugov & Marta Troya‐Martinez, 2019. "Vague lies and lax standards of proof: On the law and economics of advice," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 298-315, April.
    6. Ginzburg, Boris, 2019. "A Simple Model of Competitive Testing," MPRA Paper 94605, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Stephen Morris, 2001. "Political Correctness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 231-265, April.
    8. Roland Benabou & Guy Laroque, 1992. "Using Privileged Information to Manipulate Markets: Insiders, Gurus, and Credibility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(3), pages 921-958.
    9. Lamont, Owen A., 2002. "Macroeconomic forecasts and microeconomic forecasters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 265-280, July.
    10. Elliot Lipnowski & Doron Ravid, 2020. "Cheap Talk With Transparent Motives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(4), pages 1631-1660, July.
    11. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    12. Marco Ottaviani & Peter Norman Sørensen, 2006. "Reputational cheap talk," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 155-175, March.
    13. Ilan Guttman & Ilan Kremer & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2014. "Not Only What but Also When: A Theory of Dynamic Voluntary Disclosure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2400-2420, August.
    14. Trueman, Brett, 1994. "Analyst Forecasts and Herding Behavior," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(1), pages 97-124.
    15. Klein, Nicolas & Mylovanov, Tymofiy, 2017. "Will truth out?—An advisor’s quest to appear competent," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 112-121.
    16. Gabriele Gratton & Richard Holden & Anton Kolotilin, 2018. "When to Drop a Bombshell," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 85(4), pages 2139-2172.
    17. Prendergast, Canice & Stole, Lars, 1996. "Impetuous Youngsters and Jaded Old-Timers: Acquiring a Reputation for Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1105-1134, December.
    18. Mariano, Beatriz, 2012. "Market power and reputational concerns in the ratings industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1616-1626.
    19. Mathias Dewatripont & Ian Jewitt & Jean Tirole, 1999. "The Economics of Career Concerns, Part I: Comparing Information Structures," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 183-198.
    20. John R. Graham, 1999. "Herding among Investment Newsletters: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(1), pages 237-268, February.
    21. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik & Amit Solomon, 2000. "Security Analysts' Career Concerns and Herding of Earnings Forecasts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(1), pages 121-144, Spring.
    22. Joel Sobel, 1985. "A Theory of Credibility," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 557-573.
    23. Mathias Dewatripont & Ian Jewitt & Jean Tirole, 1999. "The Economics of Career Concerns, Part I: Comparing Information Structures," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 183-198.
    24. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    25. Dan Bernhardt & Chi Wan & Zhijie Xiao, 2016. "The Reluctant Analyst," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 987-1040, September.
    26. Krishna, Vijay & Morgan, John, 2004. "The art of conversation: eliciting information from experts through multi-stage communication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 147-179, August.
    27. Steven R. Grenadier & Andrey Malenko & Nadya Malenko, 2016. "Timing Decisions in Organizations: Communication and Authority in a Dynamic Environment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2552-2581, September.
    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. Egor Starkov, 2020. "Only Time Will Tell: Credible Dynamic Signaling," Discussion Papers 20-05, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.

    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. Mariano, Beatriz, 2012. "Market power and reputational concerns in the ratings industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1616-1626.
    2. Bizer, Kilian & Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till & Spiwoks, Markus, 2014. "Strategic coordination in forecasting: An experimental study," Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research Discussion Papers 195, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    3. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter Norman, 2006. "The strategy of professional forecasting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 441-466, August.
    4. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter Norman, 2006. "Professional advice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 120-142, January.
    5. Schottmüller, Christoph, 2019. "Too good to be truthful: Why competent advisers are fired," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 333-360.
    6. Liu, Yaozhou Franklin & Sanyal, Amal, 2012. "When second opinions hurt: A model of expert advice under career concerns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-16.
    7. Clarke, Jonathan & Subramanian, Ajay, 2006. "Dynamic forecasting behavior by analysts: Theory and evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 81-113, April.
    8. Marinovic, Iván & Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter, 2013. "Forecasters’ Objectives and Strategies," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 690-720, Elsevier.
    9. Di Maggio, Marco, 2009. "Accountability and Cheap Talk," MPRA Paper 18652, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Thomas, Caroline, 2019. "Experimentation with reputation concerns – Dynamic signalling with changing types," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 366-415.
    11. Dasgupta, Amil & Sarafidis, Yianis, 2009. "Managers as administrators: Reputation and incentives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 155-163, May.
    12. Marco Ottaviani & Peter Norman Sorensen, 2002. "Professional Advice: The Theory of Reputational Cheap Talk," Discussion Papers 02-05, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    13. Zitzewitz, Eric, 2001. "Measuring Herding and Exaggeration by Equity Analysts and Other Opinion Sellers," Research Papers 1802, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    14. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June.
    15. Xiaojing Meng, 2015. "Analyst Reputation, Communication, and Information Acquisition," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 119-173, March.
    16. Klein, Nicolas & Mylovanov, Tymofiy, 2017. "Will truth out?—An advisor’s quest to appear competent," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 112-121.
    17. 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.
    18. Friesen, Geoffrey & Weller, Paul A., 2006. "Quantifying cognitive biases in analyst earnings forecasts," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 333-365, November.
    19. Lin, Mei-Chen, 2018. "The impact of aggregate uncertainty on herding in analysts' stock recommendations," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 90-105.
    20. Irene Valsecchi, 2013. "The expert problem: a survey," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 303-331, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Career concerns; reputation; dynamic games; games of timing; strategic information transmission;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • 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
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    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:zur:econwp:334. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Marita Kieser). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/seizhch.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.