IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1412.7172.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rational Groupthink

Author

Listed:
  • Matan Harel
  • Elchanan Mossel
  • Philipp Strack
  • Omer Tamuz

Abstract

We study how long-lived rational agents learn from repeatedly observing a private signal and each others' actions. With normal signals, a group of any size learns more slowly than just four agents who directly observe each others' private signals in each period. Similar results apply to general signal structures. We identify rational groupthink---in which agents ignore their private signals and choose the same action for long periods of time---as the cause of this failure of information aggregation.

Suggested Citation

  • Matan Harel & Elchanan Mossel & Philipp Strack & Omer Tamuz, 2014. "Rational Groupthink," Papers 1412.7172, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1412.7172
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.7172
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duffie, Darrell & Malamud, Semyon & Manso, Gustavo, 2014. "Information percolation in segmented markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 1-32.
    2. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 1998. "Learning from Neighbours," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(3), pages 595-621.
    3. Darrell Duffie & Gaston Giroux & Gustavo Manso, 2010. "Information Percolation," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 100-111, February.
    4. Xavier Vives, 1993. "How Fast do Rational Agents Learn?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(2), pages 329-347.
    5. Jadbabaie, Ali & Molavi, Pooya & Sandroni, Alvaro & Tahbaz-Salehi, Alireza, 2012. "Non-Bayesian social learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 210-225.
    6. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    7. Parikh, Rohit & Krasucki, Paul, 1990. "Communication, consensus, and knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 178-189, October.
    8. Erik Eyster & Matthew Rabin, 2014. "Extensive Imitation is Irrational and Harmful," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1861-1898.
    9. Darrell Duffie & Semyon Malamud & Gustavo Manso, 2009. "Information Percolation With Equilibrium Search Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1513-1574, September.
    10. Lones Smith & Peter Sorensen, 2000. "Pathological Outcomes of Observational Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 371-398, March.
    11. Hong, Han & Shum, Matthew, 2004. "Rates of information aggregation in common value auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-40, May.
    12. Callander, Steven & Hörner, Johannes, 2009. "The wisdom of the minority," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1421-1439.2, July.
    13. Abhijit Banerjee & Arun G. Chandrasekhar & Esther Duflo & Matthew O. Jackson, 2012. "The Diffusion of Microfinance," NBER Working Papers 17743, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Timothy G. Conley & Christopher R. Udry, 2010. "Learning about a New Technology: Pineapple in Ghana," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 35-69, March.
    15. Jussi Keppo & Lones Smith & Dmitry Davydov, 2008. "Optimal Electoral Timing: Exercise Wisely and You May Live Longer -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(2), pages 597-628.
    16. Hörner, Johannes & Takahashi, Satoru, 2016. "How fast do equilibrium payoff sets converge in repeated games?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 332-359.
    17. Gale, Douglas & Kariv, Shachar, 2003. "Bayesian learning in social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 329-346, November.
    18. Darrell Duffie & Gustavo Manso, 2007. "Information Percolation in Large Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 203-209, May.
    19. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    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. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2021. "Learning Efficiency of Multi-Agent Information Structures," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2299R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Dec 2021.
    2. Wanying Huang & Philipp Strack & Omer Tamuz, 2024. "Learning in Repeated Interactions on Networks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(1), pages 1-27, January.
    3. Keppo, Jussi & Satopää, Ville A., 2024. "Bayesian herd detection for dynamic data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 285-301.
    4. Parker, Owen N. & Mui, Rachel & Bhawe, Nachiket & Semadeni, Matthew, 2022. "Insight or ignorance: How collaborative history in a workgroup fits with project type to shape performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 154-167.

    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. Keppo, Jussi & Satopää, Ville A., 2024. "Bayesian herd detection for dynamic data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 285-301.
    2. Ilan Lobel & Evan Sadler, 2016. "Preferences, Homophily, and Social Learning," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 564-584, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Duffie, Darrell & Malamud, Semyon & Manso, Gustavo, 2014. "Information percolation in segmented markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 1-32.
    5. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2020. "Misinterpreting Others and the Fragility of Social Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2281-2328, November.
    6. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Omer Tamuz & Ivo Welch, 2024. "Information Cascades and Social Learning," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1040-1093, September.
    7. , & , & ,, 2014. "Dynamics of information exchange in endogenous social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), January.
    8. Mueller-Frank, Manuel, 2014. "Does one Bayesian make a difference?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 423-452.
    9. Buechel, Berno & Hellmann, Tim & Klößner, Stefan, 2015. "Opinion dynamics and wisdom under conformity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 240-257.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Munther A. Dahleh & Ilan Lobel & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Bayesian Learning in Social Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(4), pages 1201-1236.
    11. Dasaratha, Krishna & He, Kevin, 2020. "Network structure and naive sequential learning," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(2), May.
    12. Larson, Nathan, 2015. "Inertia in social learning from a summary statistic," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 596-626.
    13. Hann-Caruthers, Wade & Martynov, Vadim V. & Tamuz, Omer, 2018. "The speed of sequential asymptotic learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 383-409.
    14. Pooya Molavi & Ceyhun Eksin & Alejandro Ribeiro & Ali Jadbabaie, 2016. "Learning to Coordinate in Social Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 605-621, June.
    15. Duffie, Darrell & Malamud, Semyon & Manso, Gustavo, 2015. "Reprint of: Information percolation in segmented markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 838-869.
    16. James C. D. Fisher & John Wooders, 2017. "Interacting information cascades: on the movement of conventions between groups," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(1), pages 211-231, January.
    17. Ding, Huihui & Pivato, Marcus, 2021. "Deliberation and epistemic democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 138-167.
    18. Jan Hązła & Ali Jadbabaie & Elchanan Mossel & M. Amin Rahimian, 2021. "Bayesian Decision Making in Groups is Hard," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 632-654, March.
    19. , & ,, 2015. "Information diffusion in networks through social learning," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(3), September.
    20. Azomahou, T. & Opolot, D., 2014. "Beliefs dynamics in communication networks," MERIT Working Papers 2014-034, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    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:arx:papers:1412.7172. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.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.