IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v109y2018icp21-39.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Belief updating and the demand for information

Author

Listed:
  • Ambuehl, Sandro
  • Li, Shengwu

Abstract

How do individuals value noisy information that guides economic decisions? In our laboratory experiment, we find that individuals underreact to increasing the informativeness of a signal, thus undervalue high-quality information, and that they disproportionately prefer information that may yield certainty. Both biases appear to be mainly due to non-standard belief updating. We find that individuals differ consistently in their responsiveness to information – the extent that their beliefs move upon observing signals. Individual parameters of responsiveness to information have explanatory power in two distinct choice environments and are unrelated to proxies for mathematical aptitude.

Suggested Citation

  • Ambuehl, Sandro & Li, Shengwu, 2018. "Belief updating and the demand for information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 21-39.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:109:y:2018:i:c:p:21-39
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.11.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825617302191
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2017.11.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitchell Hoffman, 2016. "How is Information Valued? Evidence from Framed Field Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(595), pages 1884-1911, September.
    2. Yoram Halevy & Vincent Feltkamp, 2005. "A Bayesian Approach to Uncertainty Aversion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 449-466.
    3. Sunder, Shyam, 1992. "Market for Information: Experimental Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(3), pages 667-695, May.
    4. Segal, Uzi, 1987. "The Ellsberg Paradox and Risk Aversion: An Anticipated Utility Approach," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(1), pages 175-202, February.
    5. Holt, Charles A. & Smith, Angela M., 2009. "An update on Bayesian updating," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 125-134, February.
    6. Antonio Cabrales & Olivier Gossner & Roberto Serrano, 2013. "Entropy and the Value of Information for Investors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 360-377, February.
    7. Antonio Cabrales & Olivier Gossner & Roberto Serrano, 2012. "The Appeal of Information Transactions," Working Papers 2012-13, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    8. Kocher, Martin G. & Krawczyk, Michal & van Winden, Frans, 2014. "‘Let me dream on!’ Anticipatory emotions and preference for timing in lotteries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 29-40.
    9. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    10. Thomas Buser & Leonie Gerhards & Joël J. van der Weele, 2016. "Measuring Responsiveness to Feedback as a Personal Trait," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-043/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    11. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson & Guillermo Moloche & Stephen Weinberg, 2006. "Costly Information Acquisition: Experimental Analysis of a Boundedly Rational Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1043-1068, September.
    12. Edi Karni, 2009. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 603-606, March.
    13. Jonathan P. Beauchamp & Daniel J. Benjamin & Christopher F. Chabris & David I. Laibson, 2015. "Controlling for the Compromise Effect Debiases Estimates of Risk Preference Parameters," NBER Working Papers 21792, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Falk, Armin & Zimmermann, Florian, 2016. "Beliefs and Utility: Experimental Evidence on Preferences for Information," IZA Discussion Papers 10172, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Copeland, Thomas E & Friedman, Daniel, 1987. "The Effect of Sequential Information Arrival on Asset Prices: An Experimental Study," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 763-797, July.
    16. Helga Fehr-Duda & Thomas Epper, 2012. "Probability and Risk: Foundations and Economic Implications of Probability-Dependent Risk Preferences," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 567-593, July.
    17. Franklin Allen, 1987. "Notes--Discovering Personal Probabilities When Utility Functions are Unknown," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 542-544, April.
    18. David M. Grether, 1980. "Bayes Rule as a Descriptive Model: The Representativeness Heuristic," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 537-557.
    19. Eliaz, Kfir & Schotter, Andrew, 2010. "Paying for confidence: An experimental study of the demand for non-instrumental information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 304-324, November.
    20. Azrieli, Yaron & Lehrer, Ehud, 2008. "The value of a stochastic information structure," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 679-693, July.
    21. Steffen Andersen & Glenn Harrison & Morten Lau & E. Rutström, 2009. "Elicitation using multiple price list formats," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(3), pages 365-366, September.
    22. Grether, David M., 1992. "Testing bayes rule and the representativeness heuristic: Some experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 31-57, January.
    23. 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.
    24. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt, 2015. "Testing Ambiguity Models through the Measurement of Probabilities for Gains and Losses," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 77-100, May.
    25. Athey, Susan & Levin, Jonathan, 2018. "The value of information in monotone decision problems," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 101-116.
    26. Meta Brown & Christopher J. Flinn & Andrew Schotter, 2011. "Real-Time Search in the Laboratory and the Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 948-974, April.
    27. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    28. Kyoungwon Seo, 2009. "Ambiguity and Second-Order Belief," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1575-1605, September.
    29. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00812682 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    31. Antoniou, Constantinos & Harrison, Glenn W. & Lau, Morten I. & Read, Daniel, 2017. "Information Characteristics and Errors in Expectations: Experimental Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 737-750, April.
    32. Ergin, Haluk & Gul, Faruk, 2009. "A theory of subjective compound lotteries," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 899-929, May.
    33. 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.
    34. Stephen V. Burks & Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Lorenz Goette & Aldo Rustichini, 2013. "Overconfidence and Social Signalling," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 949-983.
    35. Cade Massey & George Wu, 2005. "Detecting Regime Shifts: The Causes of Under- and Overreaction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(6), pages 932-947, June.
    36. Andrew Caplin & Mark Dean & Daniel Martin, 2011. "Search and Satisficing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2899-2922, December.
    37. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    38. David Eil & Justin M. Rao, 2011. "The Good News-Bad News Effect: Asymmetric Processing of Objective Information about Yourself," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 114-138, May.
    39. Yoram Halevy, 2007. "Ellsberg Revisited: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 503-536, March.
    40. Jason Abrevaya & Wei Jiang, 2005. "A Nonparametric Approach to Measuring and Testing Curvature," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 1-19, January.
    41. 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.
    42. Carlo Kraemer & Martin Weber, 2004. "How Do People Take into Account Weight, Strength and Quality of Segregated vs. Aggregated Data? Experimental Evidence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 113-142, September.
    43. Vitali Gretschko & Alexander Rajko, 2015. "Excess information acquisition in auctions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 335-355, September.
    44. Charles A. Holt & Angela M. Smith, 2016. "Belief Elicitation with a Synchronized Lottery Choice Menu That Is Invariant to Risk Attitudes," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 110-139, February.
    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. Kai Barron, 2021. "Belief updating: does the ‘good-news, bad-news’ asymmetry extend to purely financial domains?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 31-58, March.
    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. Wu, Keyu & Fehr, Ernst & Hofland, Sean & Schonger, Martin, 2024. "On the Psychological Foundations of Ambiguity and Compound Risk Aversion," IZA Discussion Papers 17032, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Cacault, Maria Paula & Grieder, Manuel, 2019. "How group identification distorts beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 63-76.
    5. Ilke Aydogan & Loïc Berger & Valentina Bosetti & Ning Liu, 2023. "Three Layers of Uncertainty," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), pages 2209-2236.
    6. repec:hal:journl:hal-03031751 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Prokosheva, Sasha, 2016. "Comparing decisions under compound risk and ambiguity: The importance of cognitive skills," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 94-105.
    8. Cheung, Stephen L. & Johnstone, Lachlan, 2017. "True Overconfidence, Revealed through Actions: An Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 10545, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Izhakian, Yehuda, 2020. "A theoretical foundation of ambiguity measurement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    10. Izhakian, Yehuda, 2017. "Expected utility with uncertain probabilities theory," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 91-103.
    11. Bruhin, Adrian & Santos-Pinto, Luís & Staubli, David, 2018. "How do beliefs about skill affect risky decisions?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 350-371.
    12. Elabed, Ghada & Carter, Michael R., 2015. "Compound-risk aversion, ambiguity and the willingness to pay for microinsurance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 150-166.
    13. Pëllumb Reshidi & Alessandro Lizzeri & Leeat Yariv & Jimmy Chan & Wing Suen, 2021. "Individual and Collective Information Acquisition: An Experimental Study," CESifo Working Paper Series 9468, CESifo.
    14. Aurélien Baillon & Yoram Halevy & Chen Li, 2022. "Experimental elicitation of ambiguity attitude using the random incentive system," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 1002-1023, June.
    15. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Umut Keskin & Olivier l’Haridon & Chen Li, 2018. "The Effect of Learning on Ambiguity Attitudes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2181-2198, May.
    16. Yoram Halevy & Emre Ozdenoren, 2022. "Uncertainty and compound lotteries: calibration," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(2), pages 373-395, September.
    17. Roxane Bricet, 2018. "The price for instrumentally valuable information," THEMA Working Papers 2018-10, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    18. Sasha Prokosheva, 2014. "Comparing Decisions under Compound Risk and Ambiguity: The Importance of Cognitive Skills," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp525, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    19. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-04071242 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Loic Berger & Valentina Bosetti, 2016. "Ellsberg Re-revisited: An Experiment Disentangling Model Uncertainty and Risk Aversion," Working Papers 2016.37, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    21. Burdea, Valeria & Woon, Jonathan, 2022. "Online belief elicitation methods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    22. David Owens Jr. & Zachary Grossman Jr. & Ryan Fackler Jr., 2014. "The Control Premium: A Preference for Payoff Autonomy," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 138-161, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Demand for information; Belief updating; Responsiveness to information; Probability weighting; Experimental economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • 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:eee:gamebe:v:109:y:2018:i:c:p:21-39. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    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.