IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2201.10808.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Speed, Quality, and the Optimal Timing of Complex Decisions: Field Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Uwe Sunde
  • Dainis Zegners
  • Anthony Strittmatter

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the relation between decision speed and decision quality for a real-world setting of cognitively-demanding decisions in which the timing of decisions is endogenous: professional chess. Move-by-move data provide exceptionally detailed and precise information about decision times and decision quality, based on a comparison of actual decisions to a computational benchmark of best moves constructed using the artificial intelligence of a chess engine. The results reveal that faster decisions are associated with better performance. The findings are consistent with the predictions of procedural decision models like drift-diffusion-models in which decision makers sequentially acquire information about decision alternatives with uncertain valuations.

Suggested Citation

  • Uwe Sunde & Dainis Zegners & Anthony Strittmatter, 2022. "Speed, Quality, and the Optimal Timing of Complex Decisions: Field Evidence," Papers 2201.10808, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2201.10808
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.10808
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Larbi Alaoui & Antonio Penta, 2016. "Endogenous Depth of Reasoning," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(4), pages 1297-1333.
    2. Anthony Strittmatter & Uwe Sunde & Dainis Zegners, 2020. "Life cycle patterns of cognitive performance over the long run," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(44), pages 27255-27261, November.
    3. Drew Fudenberg & Philipp Strack & Tomasz Strzalecki, 2018. "Speed, Accuracy, and the Optimal Timing of Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3651-3684, December.
    4. Leonidas Spiliopoulos & Andreas Ortmann, 2018. "The BCD of response time analysis in experimental economics," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 383-433, June.
    5. Drew Fudenberg & Whitney Newey & Philipp Strack & Tomasz Strzalecki, 2020. "Testing the drift-diffusion model," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(52), pages 33141-33148, December.
    6. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: A Study of Response Times," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1243-1259, October.
    7. Ian Krajbich & Björn Bartling & Todd Hare & Ernst Fehr, 2015. "Rethinking fast and slow based on a critique of reaction-time reverse inference," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-9, November.
    8. David Gill & Victoria Prowse, 2023. "Strategic Complexity and the Value of Thinking," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(650), pages 761-786.
    9. Andrew Schotter & Isabel Trevino, 2021. "Is response time predictive of choice? An experimental study of threshold strategies," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 87-117, March.
    10. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier, 2021. "Cognitive sophistication and deliberation times," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 558-592, June.
    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. Marco Sahm & Robert K. Weizsäcker, 2016. "Reason, Intuition, and Time," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 195-207, April.
    13. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    14. Arad, Ayala & Rubinstein, Ariel, 2012. "Multi-dimensional iterative reasoning in action: The case of the Colonel Blotto game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 571-585.
    15. Anja Achtziger & Carlos Alós-Ferrer, 2014. "Fast or Rational? A Response-Times Study of Bayesian Updating," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 923-938, April.
    16. Christopher F. Chabris & David Laibson & Carrie L. Morris & Jonathon P. Schuldt & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2009. "The Allocation of Time in Decision-Making," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 628-637, 04-05.
    17. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: Response Times Study," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000001011, UCLA Department of Economics.
    18. Arkady Konovalov & Ian Krajbich, 2016. "Revealed Indifference: Using Response Times to Infer Preferences," Working Papers 16-01, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    19. Ryan Webb, 2019. "The (Neural) Dynamics of Stochastic Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 230-255, January.
    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. Gürtler, Oliver & Struth, Lennart & Thon, Max, 2023. "Competition and risk-taking," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Johannes Carow & Niklas M. Witzig, 2024. "Time Pressure and Strategic Risk-Taking in Professional Chess," Working Papers 2404, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

    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. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier, 2021. "Cognitive sophistication and deliberation times," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 558-592, June.
    2. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Ernst Fehr & Nick Netzer, 2021. "Time Will Tell: Recovering Preferences When Choices Are Noisy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(6), pages 1828-1877.
    3. Clithero, John A., 2018. "Response times in economics: Looking through the lens of sequential sampling models," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 61-86.
    4. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Ritschel, Alexander, 2021. "Multiple behavioral rules in Cournot oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 250-267.
    5. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Michele Garagnani, 2022. "Strength of preference and decisions under risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 309-329, June.
    6. Recalde, María P. & Riedl, Arno & Vesterlund, Lise, 2018. "Error-prone inference from response time: The case of intuitive generosity in public-good games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 132-147.
    7. Andrew Schotter & Isabel Trevino, 2021. "Is response time predictive of choice? An experimental study of threshold strategies," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 87-117, March.
    8. Arkady Konovalov & Ian Krajbich, 2016. "Revealed Indifference: Using Response Times to Infer Preferences," Working Papers 16-01, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Krajbich Ian & Smith Stephanie M., 2015. "Modeling Eye Movements and Response Times in Consumer Choice," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 55-72, January.
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:5:p:540-551 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Niu, Xiaofei & Li, Jianbiao, 2019. "How Time Constraint Affects the Disposition Effect?," EconStor Preprints 194618, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    12. Zegners, Dainis & Sunde, Uwe & Strittmatter, Anthony, 2020. "Decisions and Performance Under Bounded Rationality: A Computational Benchmarking Approach," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 263, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    13. Andrew Caplin & Daniel Martin, 2016. "The Dual-Process Drift Diffusion Model: Evidence From Response Times," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1274-1282, April.
    14. Avoyan, Ala & Schotter, Andrew, 2020. "Attention in games: An experimental study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    15. Echenique, Federico & Saito, Kota, 2017. "Response time and utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 49-59.
    16. Grabiszewski, Konrad & Horenstein, Alex, 2020. "Effort is not a monotonic function of skills: Results from a global mobile experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 634-652.
    17. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2020. "An economist and a psychologist form a line: What can imperfect perception of length tell us about stochastic choice?," MPRA Paper 99417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Ariel Rubenstein, 2013. "Response time and decision making: An experimental study," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(5), pages 540-551, September.
    19. Jacquemet, N. & Luchini, S. & Malézieux, A. & Shogren, J.F., 2020. "Who’ll stop lying under oath? Empirical evidence from tax evasion games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    20. Nobuo Koida, 2017. "A multiattribute decision time theory," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 407-430, October.
    21. Backhaus, Teresa & Huck, Steffen & Leutgeb, Johannes & Oprea, Ryan, 2023. "Learning through period and physical time," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 21-29.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles

    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:arx:papers:2201.10808. 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.