IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v195y2022icp381-407.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Clarity trumps content: An experiment on information acquisition in beauty contests

Author

Listed:
  • Banerjee, Sanjay
  • Qu, Hong
  • Zhao, Ran

Abstract

We study how beauty contest incentives affect information acquisition decisions when players can access multiple information sources. Players can acquire information from two equally informative sources: one source has high clarity (i.e., easy to understand and thus likely to be commonly interpreted) but low content (i.e., less precise to identify the economic state); the other has low clarity but high content. Theory predicts that strong beauty contest incentives lead players to ignore information with low clarity despite its high content. Our experimental results confirm this inattention to low-clarity information. Surprisingly, the inattention is stronger than theoretical prediction. In the beauty contest game, subjects use low-clarity information more than theory predicts. The over-use of low-clarity information at the beauty contest stage generates an endogenous cost at the information acquisition stage. The endogenous cost can lead to the under-acquisition of low-clarity information even when information cost is negligible. Interestingly, we find that the under-acquisition of low-clarity information substantially offsets its over-use in the beauty contest game.

Suggested Citation

  • Banerjee, Sanjay & Qu, Hong & Zhao, Ran, 2022. "Clarity trumps content: An experiment on information acquisition in beauty contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 381-407.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:195:y:2022:i:c:p:381-407
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.01.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122000154
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.01.009?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. Camille Cornand & Frank Heinemann, 2014. "Measuring agents’ reaction to private and public information in games with strategic complementarities," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 61-77, March.
    2. Stahl Dale O. & Wilson Paul W., 1995. "On Players' Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 218-254, July.
    3. Baeriswyl Romain & Cornand Camille, 2016. "The Predominant Role of Signal Precision in Experimental Beauty Contests," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 267-301, January.
    4. Christian Hellwig & Laura Veldkamp, 2009. "Knowing What Others Know: Coordination Motives in Information Acquisition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 223-251.
    5. 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.
    6. Camille Cornand & Frank Heinemann, 2015. "Limited higher order beliefs and the welfare effects of public information," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(6), pages 1005-1028, November.
    7. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    8. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2013. "Structural Models of Nonequilibrium Strategic Thinking: Theory, Evidence, and Applications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 5-62, March.
    9. Luca Colombo & Gianluca Femminis & Alessandro Pavan, 2014. "Information Acquisition and Welfare," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1438-1483.
    10. Szkup, Michal & Trevino, Isabel, 2020. "Sentiments, strategic uncertainty, and information structures in coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 534-553.
    11. David P. Myatt & Chris Wallace, 2012. "Endogenous Information Acquisition in Coordination Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 340-374.
    12. Joseph Engelberg & Caroline Sasseville & Jared Williams, 2012. "Market Madness? The Case of Mad Money," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 351-364, February.
    13. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    14. Franklin Allen & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2006. "Beauty Contests and Iterated Expectations in Asset Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 719-752.
    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. Heinke, Steve, 2024. "Top–down and bottom–up information acquisition: Application to financial markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    2. Caylor, Marcus & Hong, Duanping & Park, Hyungshin & Qu, Hong, 2023. "Do analysts anchor on public signals in forecasting the target price of disruptive technology firms?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).

    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. Helland, Leif & Iachan, Felipe S. & Juelsrud, Ragnar E. & Nenov, Plamen T., 2021. "Information quality and regime change: Evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 538-554.
    2. Ruiz-Buforn, Alba & Alfarano, Simone & Camacho-Cuena, Eva & Morone, Andrea, 2018. "Crowding out effect and traders' overreliance on public information in financial markets: a lesson from the lab," MPRA Paper 88866, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Baeriswyl, Romain & Boun My, Kene & Cornand, Camille, 2021. "Double overreaction in beauty contests with information acquisition: Theory and experiment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 432-445.
    4. Ruiz-Buforn, Alba & Camacho-Cuena, Eva & Morone, Andrea & Alfarano, Simone, 2021. "Overweighting of public information in financial markets: A lesson from the lab," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Boun My, Kene & Cornand, Camille & Dos Santos Ferreira, Rodolphe, 2021. "Public information and the concern for coordination," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    6. Shapiro, Dmitry & Shi, Xianwen & Zillante, Artie, 2014. "Level-k reasoning in a generalized beauty contest," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 308-329.
    7. Trabelsi, Emna & Hichri, Walid, 2021. "Central Bank Transparency with (semi-)public Information: Laboratory Experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    8. Nagel, Rosemarie & Bühren, Christoph & Frank, Björn, 2017. "Inspired and inspiring: Hervé Moulin and the discovery of the beauty contest game," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 191-207.
    9. Marcus Giamattei & Johann Lambsdorff, 2015. "Balancing the current account: experimental evidence on underconsumption," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 670-696, December.
    10. Romain Baeriswyl & Camille Cornand, 2014. "Reducing Overreaction To Central Banks' Disclosures: Theory And Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1087-1126, August.
    11. Stephanie L. Chan, 2021. "The Social Value of Public Information When Not Everyone is Privately Informed," Working Papers 2021-09-18, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    12. Teeple, Keisuke, 2023. "Level-k predatory trading," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    13. Kohei Kawamura & Vasileios Vlaseros, 2015. "Expert Information and Majority Decisions," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 261, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    14. Pavan, Alessandro & Vives, Xavier, 2015. "Information, Coordination, and Market Frictions: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 407-426.
    15. Bernard Herskovic & João Ramos, 2020. "Acquiring Information through Peers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(7), pages 2128-2152, July.
    16. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    17. Hüning, Hendrik & Meub, Lukas, 2015. "Optimal public information dissemination: Introducing observational learning into a generalized beauty contest," HWWI Research Papers 169, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    18. Alba Ruiz-Buforn & Simone Alfarano & Eva Camacho-Cuena & Andrea Morone, 2022. "Single vs. multiple disclosures in an experimental asset market with information acquisition," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(13-15), pages 1513-1539, October.
    19. Kneeland, Terri, 2016. "Coordination under limited depth of reasoning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 49-64.
    20. Hüning, Hendrik & Meub, Lukas, 2015. "Optimal public information dissemination: Introducing observational learning into a generalized beauty contest," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 260, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information acquisition; Beauty contests; Limited level reasoning; Coordination;
    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
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    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:jeborg:v:195:y:2022:i:c:p:381-407. 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/jebo .

    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.