IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/25893.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Overconfidence and risk dispersion

Author

Listed:
  • Heller, Yuval

Abstract

Experimental evidence suggests that people tend to be overconfident in the sense that they overestimate the accuracy of their own predictions. In this paper we present a simple principal-agent model in which principal's interest in dispersing risk motivates him to hire overconfident agents. We show that the induced overconfidence satisfies experimental stylized facts (such as, hard-easy effect, false certainty effect and underuse of base rates). In addition, we show that overconfidence is a unique stable evolutionary strategy, and that it can Pareto-improve social welfare. Finally, we demonstrate applicability by: 1) demonstrating why CEOs hire overconfident intermediate managers, and 2) explaining why investors prefer overconfident entrepreneurs.

Suggested Citation

  • Heller, Yuval, 2010. "Overconfidence and risk dispersion," MPRA Paper 25893, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25893
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/25893/1/MPRA_paper_25893.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/26161/1/MPRA_paper_26161.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/27554/1/MPRA_paper_27554.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/33816/1/MPRA_paper_33816.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/44469/1/MPRA_paper_44469.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gervais, Simon & Odean, Terrance, 2001. "Learning to be Overconfident," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 1-27.
    2. Dorota Skała, 2008. "Overconfidence in Psychology and Finance – an Interdisciplinary Literature Review," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 39(4), pages 33-50.
    3. Bruce A. Weinberg, 2009. "A Model Of Overconfidence," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(4), pages 502-515, October.
    4. Robson, Arthur J., 1996. "A Biological Basis for Expected and Non-expected Utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 397-424, February.
    5. Soll, Jack B., 1996. "Determinants of Overconfidence and Miscalibration: The Roles of Random Error and Ecological Structure," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 117-137, February.
    6. Busenitz, Lowell W. & Barney, Jay B., 1997. "Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: Biases and heuristics in strategic decision-making," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 9-30, January.
    7. David V. Budescu & Ning Du, 2007. "Coherence and Consistency of Investors' Probability Judgments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(11), pages 1731-1744, November.
    8. Moore, Don A., 2007. "Not so above average after all: When people believe they are worse than average and its implications for theories of bias in social comparison," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 42-58, 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. Frenkel, Sivan & Heller, Yuval & Teper, Roee, 2012. "Endowment as a blessing," MPRA Paper 39430, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 2012.

    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. Robert Libby & Kristina Rennekamp, 2012. "Self‐Serving Attribution Bias, Overconfidence, and the Issuance of Management Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 197-231, March.
    2. Simon, Mark & Shrader, Rodney C., 2012. "Entrepreneurial actions and optimistic overconfidence: The role of motivated reasoning in new product introductions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 291-309.
    3. Glaser, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2007. "Why inexperienced investors do not learn: They do not know their past portfolio performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 203-216, December.
    4. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2007. "Overconfidence and trading volume," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, June.
    5. Cassar, Gavin & Craig, Justin, 2009. "An investigation of hindsight bias in nascent venture activity," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 149-164, March.
    6. Oliver Gloede & Lukas Menkhoff, 2014. "Financial Professionals' Overconfidence: Is It Experience, Function, or Attitude?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(2), pages 236-269, March.
    7. Christopher Dawson & David de Meza & Andrew Henley & G. Reza Arabsheibani, 2014. "Entrepreneurship: Cause and Consequence of Financial Optimism," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 717-742, December.
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:1:p:29-41 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Hestermann, Nina & Le Yaouanq, Yves, 2018. "It\'s not my Fault! Self-Confidence and Experimentation," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 124, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    10. Dorota Skała, 2008. "Overconfidence in Psychology and Finance – an Interdisciplinary Literature Review," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 39(4), pages 33-50.
    11. Abu Khalaf K. Bashar & Firas Y. Hammash, 2017. "Are Amman Stock Exchange Investors Overconfident?," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(2), pages 7-10.
    12. Danková, Katarína & Servátka, Maroš, 2019. "Gender robustness of overconfidence and excess entry," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 179-199.
    13. Habib, Ahsan & Hossain, Mahmud, 2013. "CEO/CFO characteristics and financial reporting quality: A review," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 88-100.
    14. Fasano Antonio & Boido Claudio, 2017. "Concentration and Behavioral Biases in the Active Management of Bric Funds," Ekonomika (Economics), Sciendo, vol. 96(1), pages 58-73, January.
    15. Murad, Zahra & Starmer, Chris, 2021. "Confidence snowballing and relative performance feedback," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 550-572.
    16. Markus Glaser & Thomas Langer & Martin Weber, 2007. "On the Trend Recognition and Forecasting Ability of Professional Traders," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 176-193, December.
    17. Lambert, Jérôme & Bessière, Véronique & N’Goala, Gilles, 2012. "Does expertise influence the impact of overconfidence on judgment, valuation and investment decision?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1115-1128.
    18. Kraft, Priscilla S. & Günther, Christina & Kammerlander, Nadine H. & Lampe, Jan, 2022. "Overconfidence and entrepreneurship: A meta-analysis of different types of overconfidence in the entrepreneurial process," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(4).
    19. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2013. "Overconfidence, experience, and professionalism: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 92-101.
    20. Choi, Paul Moon Sub & Chung, Chune Young & Liu, Chang, 2018. "Self-attribution of overconfident CEOs and asymmetric investment-cash flow sensitivity," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-14.
    21. Hendrik Hakenes & Svetlana Katolnik, 2018. "Optimal Team Size and Overconfidence," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 665-687, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    overconfidence; risk dispersion; hard-easy effect; evolutionary stability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

    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:pra:mprapa:25893. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.