IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mtl/montec/16-2018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Precision May Harm : The Comparative Statics of Imprecise Judgement

Author

Listed:
  • Sean HORAN
  • Paola MANZINI
  • Marco MARIOTTI

Abstract

We consider an agent whose information about the objects of choice is imperfect in two respects: first, their values are perceived with error; and, second, the realised values cannot be discriminated with absolute precision . Reasons for imprecise discrimination include limitations in sensory perception, memory function, or the technology that experts use to communicate with decision-makers. We study the effect of increasing precision on the quality of decision-making. When values are perceived without error, more precision is unambiguously beneficial. We show that this ceases to be true when values are perceived with error. As a practical implication, our results establish conditions where it is counter-productive for an expert to use a finer signalling scheme to communicate with a decision-maker.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean HORAN & Paola MANZINI & Marco MARIOTTI, 2018. "Precision May Harm : The Comparative Statics of Imprecise Judgement," Cahiers de recherche 16-2018, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtl:montec:16-2018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cireqmontreal.com/wp-content/uploads/cahiers/16-2018-cah.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher Burton, 2012. "Heavy Tailed Distributions of Effect Sizes in Systematic Reviews of Complex Interventions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(3), pages 1-7, March.
    2. Robin Cubitt & Daniel Navarro-Martinez & Chris Starmer, 2015. "On preference imprecision," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 1-34, February.
    3. David J. Butler & Graham C. Loomes, 2007. "Imprecision as an Account of the Preference Reversal Phenomenon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 277-297, March.
    4. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    5. Butler, David & Loomes, Graham, 2011. "Imprecision as an account of violations of independence and betweenness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 511-522.
    6. Oben K. Bayrak & John D. Hey, 2017. "Expected utility theory with imprecise probability perception: explaining preference reversals," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(13), pages 906-910, July.
    7. Paulo Natenzon, 2019. "Random Choice and Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 419-457.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Horan, Sean & Manzini, Paola & Mariotti, Marco, 2022. "When is coarseness not a curse? Comparative statics of the coarse random utility model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    2. Carola Braun & Katrin Rehdanz & Ulrich Schmidt, 2016. "Validity of Willingness to Pay Measures under Preference Uncertainty," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Matthew P. Taylor, 2020. "Liking the long-shot … but just as a friend," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 245-261, December.
    4. Miguel A. Costa‐Gomes & Carlos Cueva & Georgios Gerasimou & Matúš Tejiščák, 2022. "Choice, deferral, and consistency," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1297-1318, July.
    5. Liu Shi & Jianying Qiu & Jiangyan Li & Frank Bohn, 2024. "Consciously stochastic in preference reversals," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 255-297, June.
    6. Michał Jakubczyk & Dominik Golicki, 2020. "Elicitation and modelling of imprecise utility of health states," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 88(1), pages 51-71, February.
    7. Qiu, Jianying, 2015. "Completing incomplete preferences," MPRA Paper 91692, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Jul 2016.
    8. Duffy, Sean & Gussman, Steven & Smith, John, 2019. "Judgments of length in the economics laboratory: Are there brains in choice?," MPRA Paper 93126, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. David J Butler, 2018. "Phishing holidays," Tourism Economics, , vol. 24(6), pages 690-700, September.
    10. Yudistira Permana, 2020. "Why do people prefer randomisation? An experimental investigation," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 88(1), pages 73-96, February.
    11. 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.
    12. Bayrak, Oben, 2016. "Another Solution for Allais Paradox: Preference Imprecision, Dispersion and Pessimism," MPRA Paper 71780, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Duffy, Sean & Gussman, Steven & Smith, John, 2021. "Visual judgments of length in the economics laboratory: Are there brains in stochastic choice?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    14. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier & Michele Garagnani, 2020. "Stochastic choice and preference reversals," ECON - Working Papers 370, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jul 2021.
    15. Qiu, Jianying, 2015. "Completing incomplete preferences," MPRA Paper 72933, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Jul 2016.
    16. Oben K Bayrak & Bengt Kriström, 2016. "Is there a valuation gap? The case of interval valuations," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(1), pages 218-236.
    17. Arts, Sara & Ong, Qiyan & Qiu, Jianying, 2020. "Measuring subjective decision confidence," MPRA Paper 117907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Pavlo Blavatskyy, 2021. "A simple non-parametric method for eliciting prospect theory's value function and measuring loss aversion under risk and ambiguity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(3), pages 403-416, October.
    19. Arts, Sara & Ong, Qiyan & Qiu, Jianying, 2020. "Measuring subjective decision confidence," MPRA Paper 106811, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Giuseppe Attanasi & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Valentina Rotondi & Daria Vigani, 2018. "Lottery- and survey-based risk attitudes linked through a multichoice elicitation task," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(3), pages 341-372, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    stochastic choice; imprecise perception;

    JEL classification:

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

    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:mtl:montec:16-2018. 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: Sharon BREWER (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdmtlca.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.