IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/ohidic/2005-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information Cascades and Observational Learning

Author

Listed:
  • Bikhchandani, Sushil

    (U of California, Los Angeles)

  • Hirshleifer, David

    (Ohio State U)

  • Welch, Ivo

    (Brown U)

Abstract

An information cascade occurs when it is optimal for an individual, having observed the actions and possibly payoffs of those ahead of him, to take the same action regardless of his own information. When there are informational cascades, society may reap only a modest fraction of the potential gains from aggregating the diverse information of many individuals. As a result, information cascades can help explain some otherwise puzzling aspects of human and animal behavior. For example, why do individuals tend to converge on similar behavior? Why is mass behavior prone to error and fads? We suggest that the theory of observational learning, and particularly of information cascades, has much to offer economics and other social sciences.

Suggested Citation

  • Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 2005. "Information Cascades and Observational Learning," Working Paper Series 2005-22, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2005-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu/fin/dice/papers/2005/2005-22.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & José A. Scheinkman, 1996. "Crime and Social Interactions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 507-548.
    2. Mr. Sunil Sharma & Sushil Bikhchandani, 2000. "Herd Behavior in Financial Markets: A Review," IMF Working Papers 2000/048, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Cipriani Marco & Guarino Antonio, 2008. "Herd Behavior and Contagion in Financial Markets," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, October.
    4. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2005. "Herd Behavior in a Laboratory Financial Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1427-1443, December.
    5. Lee In Ho, 1993. "On the Convergence of Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 395-411, December.
    6. Avery, Christopher & Zemsky, Peter, 1998. "Multidimensional Uncertainty and Herd Behavior in Financial Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 724-748, September.
    7. Jay Pil Choi, 1997. "Herd Behavior, the 'Penguin Effect,' and the Suppression of Informational Diffusion: An Analysis of Informational Externalities and Payoff Interdependency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(3), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    8. Sushil Bikhchandani & Sunil Sharma, 2001. "Herd Behavior in Financial Markets," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 47(3), pages 1-1.
    9. 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.
    10. Grinblatt, Mark & Keloharju, Matti & Ikäheimo, Seppo, 2003. "Interpersonal Effects in Consumption: Evidence from the Automobile Purchases of Neighbors," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt69h2f7cv, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    11. Russ Wermers, 1999. "Mutual Fund Herding and the Impact on Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 581-622, April.
    12. Cao, H. Henry & Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David, 2011. "Taking the road less traveled by: Does conversation eradicate pernicious cascades?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    13. Antonio E. Bernardo & Ivo Welch, 2001. "On the Evolution of Overconfidence and Entrepreneurs," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 301-330, September.
    14. 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.
    15. Welch, Ivo, 1992. "Sequential Sales, Learning, and Cascades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 695-732, June.
    16. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik & Jeremy C. Stein, 2005. "Thy Neighbor's Portfolio: Word‐of‐Mouth Effects in the Holdings and Trades of Money Managers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2801-2824, December.
    17. Caplin, Andrew & Leahy, John, 1994. "Business as Usual, Market Crashes, and Wisdom after the Fact," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 548-565, June.
    18. Devenow, Andrea & Welch, Ivo, 1996. "Rational herding in financial economics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 603-615, April.
    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.
    20. Lones Smith & Peter Sorensen, 2000. "Pathological Outcomes of Observational Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 371-398, March.
    21. Chamley,Christophe P., 2004. "Rational Herds," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521530927.
    22. Landes, William M, 1978. "An Economic Study of U.S. Aircraft Hijacking, 1961-1976," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-31, April.
    23. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik & Jeremy C. Stein, 2003. "The Neighbor's Portfolio: Word-of-Mouth Effects in the Holdings and Trade of Money Managers," NBER Working Papers 9711, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Peter N. Golder & Gerard J. Tellis, 2004. "Growing, Growing, Gone: Cascades, Diffusion, and Turning Points in the Product Life Cycle," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 207-218, December.
    25. Peter Sorensen & Marco Ottaviani, 2000. "Herd Behavior and Investment: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 695-704, June.
    26. Gale, Douglas, 1996. "What have we learned from social learning?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 617-628, April.
    27. Chamley,Christophe P., 2004. "Rational Herds," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521824019.
    28. Jeffrey R. Brown & Zoran Ivković & Paul A. Smith & Scott Weisbenner, 2008. "Neighbors Matter: Causal Community Effects and Stock Market Participation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1509-1531, June.
    29. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    30. In Ho Lee, 1998. "Market Crashes and Informational Avalanches," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(4), pages 741-759.
    31. Sheffrin, S.M. & Triest, R.K., 1991. "Can Brute Deterrence Backfire? Perceptions and Attitudes in Taxpayer Compliance," Papers 373, California Davis - Institute of Governmental Affairs.
    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. Antonio Guarino & Antonella Ianni, 2010. "Bayesian Social Learning with Local Interactions," Games, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-21, October.

    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. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9142, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    3. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John List, 2006. "Information Cascades: Evidence from An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," NBER Working Papers 12767, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Drehmann, Mathias & Oechssler, Jorg & Roider, Andreas, 2007. "Herding with and without payoff externalities -- an internet experiment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 391-415, April.
    5. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2014. "Estimating a Structural Model of Herd Behavior in Financial Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(1), pages 224-251, January.
    6. Cao, H. Henry & Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David, 2011. "Taking the road less traveled by: Does conversation eradicate pernicious cascades?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    7. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2009. "Herd Behavior in Financial Markets: An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(1), pages 206-233, March.
    8. Puput Tri Komalasari & Marwan Asri & Bernardinus M. Purwanto & Bowo Setiyono, 2022. "Herding behaviour in the capital market: What do we know and what is next?," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 745-787, September.
    9. Feri, Francesco & Meléndez-Jiménez, Miguel A. & Ponti, Giovanni & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2011. "Error cascades in observational learning: An experiment on the Chinos game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 136-146, September.
    10. Decamps, Jean-Paul & Lovo, Stefano, 2006. "Informational cascades with endogenous prices: The role of risk aversion," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 109-120, February.
    11. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2005. "Herd Behavior in a Laboratory Financial Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1427-1443, December.
    12. Cipriani Marco & Guarino Antonio, 2008. "Herd Behavior and Contagion in Financial Markets," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, October.
    13. repec:feb:framed:0003 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Park, Andreas & Sgroi, Daniel, 2012. "Herding, contrarianism and delay in financial market trading," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1020-1037.
    15. Galariotis, Emilios C. & Rong, Wu & Spyrou, Spyros I., 2015. "Herding on fundamental information: A comparative study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 589-598.
    16. Pop, Raluca Elena, 2012. "Herd behavior towards the market index: evidence from Romanian stock exchange," MPRA Paper 51595, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. 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.
    18. Michael McAleer & Kim Radalj, 2013. "Herding, Information Cascades and Volatility Spillovers in Futures Markets," Journal of Reviews on Global Economics, Lifescience Global, vol. 2, pages 307-329.
    19. Simões Vieira, Elisabete F. & Valente Pereira, Márcia S., 2015. "Herding behaviour and sentiment: Evidence in a small European market," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 78-86.
    20. Pastine, Tuvana, 2005. "Social Learning in Continuous Time: When are Informational Cascades More Likely to be Inefficient?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5120, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Ali-Rind, Asad & Boubaker, Sabri & Jarjir, Souad Lajili, 2023. "Peer effects in financial economics: A literature survey," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    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:ecl:ohidic:2005-22. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdohsus.html .

    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.