IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/the/publsh/992.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Expressible inspections

Author

Listed:
  • ,

    (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University)

  • ,

    (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University)

Abstract

A decision maker needs predictions about the realization of a repeated experiment in each period. An expert provides a theory that, conditional on each finite history of outcomes, supplies a probabilistic prediction about the next outcome. However, there may be false experts without any knowledge of the data-generating process who deliver theories strategically. Hence, empirical tests for predictions are necessary. A test is manipulable if a false expert can pass the test with a high probability. For tests, as contracts, to be implementable, they have to be computable. Considering only computable tests, we show that there is a test that is not manipulable by any computable strategies and that accepts true experts with high probabilities. In particular, the constructed test is both future independent (Olszewski and Sandroni, 2008) and sequential (Shmaya, 2008). On the other hand, any computable test is manipulable by a strategy that is computable relative to the halting problem. Our conclusion overturns earlier results that future independent tests are manipulable, and shows that computability considerations have significant effects in these problems.

Suggested Citation

  • , & ,, 2013. "Expressible inspections," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), May.
    • Handle: RePEc:the:publsh:992
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/20130263/8769/259
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alvaro Sandroni, 2003. "The reproducible properties of correct forecasts," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 32(1), pages 151-159, December.
    2. Lehrer, Ehud, 2003. "A wide range no-regret theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 101-115, January.
    3. Al-Najjar, Nabil I. & Sandroni, Alvaro & Smorodinsky, Rann & Weinstein, Jonathan, 2010. "Testing theories with learnable and predictive representations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2203-2217, November.
    4. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2009. "Strategic Manipulation of Empirical Tests," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(1), pages 57-70, February.
    5. Eddie Dekel & Yossi Feinberg, 2006. "Non-Bayesian Testing of a Stochastic Prediction," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 893-906.
    6. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2006. "Strategic Manipulation of Empirical Tests," Discussion Papers 1425, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    7. Lance Fortnow & Rakesh V. Vohra, 2009. "The Complexity of Forecast Testing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(1), pages 93-105, January.
    8. Alvaro Sandroni & Rann Smorodinsky & Rakesh V. Vohra, 2003. "Calibration with Many Checking Rules," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 141-153, February.
    9. ,, 2008. "Many inspections are manipulable," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(3), September.
    10. Lehrer, Ehud, 2001. "Any Inspection Is Manipulable," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1333-1347, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. “Expressible Inspections,” T-W. Hu & E. Shmaya (2012)
      by afinetheorem in A Fine Theorem on 2012-05-09 10:59:35

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bavly, Gilad & Peretz, Ron, 2015. "How to gamble against all odds," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 157-168.
    2. Olszewski, Wojciech, 2015. "Calibration and Expert Testing," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    3. Mark Whitmeyer & Kun Zhang, 2023. "Redeeming Falsifiability?," Papers 2303.15723, arXiv.org.
    4. Hu, Tai-Wei, 2014. "Unpredictability of complex (pure) strategies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-15.

    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. Dean Foster & Rakesh Vohra, 2011. "Calibration: Respice, Adspice, Prospice," Discussion Papers 1537, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    2. Colin, Stewart, 2011. "Nonmanipulable Bayesian testing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(5), pages 2029-2041, September.
    3. Al-Najjar, Nabil I. & Sandroni, Alvaro & Smorodinsky, Rann & Weinstein, Jonathan, 2010. "Testing theories with learnable and predictive representations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2203-2217, November.
    4. Kavaler, Itay & Smorodinsky, Rann, 2019. "On comparison of experts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 94-109.
    5. Olszewski, Wojciech, 2015. "Calibration and Expert Testing," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    6. Itay Kavaler & Rann Smorodinsky, 2019. "A Cardinal Comparison of Experts," Papers 1908.10649, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2020.
    7. Yossi Feinberg & Nicolas Lambert, 2015. "Mostly calibrated," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(1), pages 153-163, February.
    8. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2008. "Manipulability of Future-Independent Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1437-1466, November.
    9. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2009. "Strategic Manipulation of Empirical Tests," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(1), pages 57-70, February.
    10. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2006. "Strategic Manipulation of Empirical Tests," Discussion Papers 1425, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    11. Yossi Feinberg & Colin Stewart, 2008. "Testing Multiple Forecasters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 561-582, May.
    12. Al-Najjar, Nabil & Sandroni, Alvaro, 2013. "A difficulty in the testing of strategic experts," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 5-9.
    13. David Lagziel & Ehud Lehrer, 2021. "Transferable deposits as a screening mechanism," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(2), pages 483-504, March.
    14. Alvaro Sandroni & Wojciech Olszewski, 2008. "Falsifiability," PIER Working Paper Archive 08-016, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    15. Francisco Barreras & Álvaro J. Riascos, 2016. "Screening multiple potentially false experts," Monografías 15075, Quantil.
    16. 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.
    17. Eddie Dekel & Yossi Feinberg, 2006. "Non-Bayesian Testing of a Stochastic Prediction," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 893-906.
    18. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2011. "Falsifiability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 788-818, April.
    19. Dean P. Foster & H. Peyton Young, 2012. "A strategy-proof test of portfolio returns," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(5), pages 671-683, March.
    20. David Lagziel & Ehud Lehrer, 2015. "On the Failures of Bonus Plans," Papers 1505.04587, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Computability; expert testing; calibration tests; zero-sum games;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D00 - Microeconomics - - General - - - General

    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:the:publsh:992. 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: Martin J. Osborne (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://econtheory.org .

    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.