IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pen/papers/05-002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fact-Free Learning

Author

Listed:
  • Enriqueta Aragones

    (Autonomous University of Barcelona - Institut d'Anà lisi Econòmica (CSIC))

  • Itzhak Gilboa

    (Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel Aviv University)

  • Andrew Postlewaite

    (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

  • David Schmeidler

    (Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel Aviv University)

Abstract

People may be surprised by noticing certain regularities that hold in existing knowledge they have had for some time. That is, they may learn without getting new factual information. We argue that this can be partly explained by computational complexity. We show that, given a knowledge base, finding a small set of variables that obtain a certain value of R2 is computationally hard, in the sense that this term is used in computer science. We discuss some of the implications of this result and of fact-free learning in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Enriqueta Aragones & Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & David Schmeidler, 2003. "Fact-Free Learning," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-002, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2004.
    • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:05-002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/filevault/working-papers/05-002.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    2. Dekel, Eddie & Lipman, Barton L. & Rustichini, Aldo, 1998. "Recent developments in modeling unforeseen contingencies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 523-542, May.
    3. Aragones, Enriqueta & Gilboa, Itzhak & Postlewaite, Andrew & Schmeidler, David, 2014. "Rhetoric and analogies," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 1-10.
    4. Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli, 1994. "Incomplete Written Contracts: Undescribable States of Nature," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 1085-1124.
    5. Gilboa,Itzhak & Schmeidler,David, 2001. "A Theory of Case-Based Decisions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521802345, September.
    6. Itzhak Gilboa, 1990. "Philosophical Applications of Kolmogorov's Complexity Measure," Discussion Papers 923, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    7. Dekel, Eddie & Lipman, Barton L & Rustichini, Aldo, 2001. "Representing Preferences with a Unique Subjective State Space," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 891-934, July.
    8. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    9. Partha Dasgupta & Douglas Gale & Oliver Hart & Eric Maskin (ed.), 1992. "Economic Analysis of Markets and Games: Essays in Honor of Frank Hahn," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262541599, April.
    10. Kreps, David M, 1979. "A Representation Theorem for "Preference for Flexibility"," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 565-577, May.
    11. Bray, Margaret M & Savin, Nathan E, 1986. "Rational Expectations Equilibria, Learning, and Model Specification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1129-1160, September.
    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. E. Aragones & I. Gilboa & A. Postlewaite & D. Schmeidler, 2003. "Accuracy vs. Simplicity: A Complex Trade-Off," Levine's Working Paper Archive 506439000000000185, David K. Levine.
    2. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    3. Hiroyuki Nakata, 2011. "Equivalent comparisons of information channels," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 559-574, October.
    4. Philipp Sadowski, 2011. "Contingent Preference for Flexibility: Eliciting Beliefs from Behavior," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001189, David K. Levine.
    5. Koida, Nobuo, 2022. "Indecisiveness, preference for flexibility, and a unique subjective state space," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Nabil I. Al-Najjar & Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli, 2006. "Undescribable Events," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 849-868.
    7. Marcus Pivato, 2020. "Subjective expected utility with a spectral state space," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(2), pages 249-313, March.
    8. Blume, Lawrence & Easley, David & Halpern, Joseph Y., 2021. "Constructive decision theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    9. Minardi, Stefania & Savochkin, Andrei, 2019. "Subjective contingencies and limited Bayesian updating," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1-45.
    10. Flores-Szwagrzak, Karol, 2022. "Learning by Convex Combination," Working Papers 16-2022, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    11. Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman, 2010. "How (Not) to Do Decision Theory," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 257-282, September.
    12. Ortoleva, Pietro, 2013. "The price of flexibility: Towards a theory of Thinking Aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 903-934.
    13. Dekel, Eddie & Lipman, Barton L. & Rustichini, Aldo, 1998. "Recent developments in modeling unforeseen contingencies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 523-542, May.
    14. Sadowski, Philipp, 2008. "Conditional Preference for Flexibility: Eliciting Beliefs from Behavior," MPRA Paper 8614, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Youichiro Higashi & Kazuya Hyogo & Norio Takeoka & Hiroyuki Tanaka, 2017. "Comparative impatience under random discounting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(3), pages 621-651, March.
    16. Nabil I. Al-Najjar & Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Emre Ozdenoren, 1999. "Subjective Representation of Complexity," Discussion Papers 1249, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    17. Higashi, Youichiro & Hyogo, Kazuya & Takeoka, Norio, 2009. "Subjective random discounting and intertemporal choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 1015-1053, May.
    18. Marek Kapera, 2022. "Learning own preferences through consumption," KAE Working Papers 2022-074, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    19. Roee Teper, 2016. "Learning the Krepsian State: Exploration Through Consumption," Working Paper 5860, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh.
    20. Caliari, Daniele & Soraperra, Ivan, 2023. "Planning to cheat: Temptation and self-control," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2023-205, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Learning; Behavioral Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory

    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:pen:papers:05-002. 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: Administrator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.