IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/1095.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Crowd Learning without Herding : A Mechanism Design Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Glazer, Jacob

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick and Faculty of Management Tel Aviv University)

  • Kremer, Ilan

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick and Faculty of Management and Economics Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

  • Perry, Motty

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

Abstract

Crowdfunding, Internet websites, and health care are only a few examples of markets in which agents make decisions not only on the basis of their own investigations and knowledge, but also on the basis of information from a "central planner" about other agents’ actions. While such reciprocal learning can be welfare-improving, it may reduce agents’ incentives to conduct their own investigations, and may lead to harmful cascades. We study the planner’s optimal policy regarding when to provide information and how much information to provide. We show that the optimum policy involves a delicate balance of hiding and revealing information.

Suggested Citation

  • Glazer, Jacob & Kremer, Ilan & Perry, Motty, 2015. "Crowd Learning without Herding : A Mechanism Design Approach," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1095, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1095
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2015/twerp_1095_glazer.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gershkov, Alex & Szentes, Balázs, 2009. "Optimal voting schemes with costly information acquisition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 36-68, January.
    2. Emir Kamenica & Matthew Gentzkow, 2011. "Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2590-2615, October.
    3. Johannes Hörner & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2016. "Selling Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(6), pages 1515-1562.
    4. 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.
    5. Sgroi, Daniel, 2002. "Optimizing Information in the Herd: Guinea Pigs, Profits, and Welfare," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 137-166, April.
    6. Myerson, Roger B, 1986. "Multistage Games with Communication," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(2), pages 323-358, March.
    7. Martimort, David & Semenov, Aggey, 2006. "Continuity in mechanism design without transfers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 182-189, November.
    8. 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.
    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. Glazer, Jacob & Kremer, Ilan & Perry, Motty, 2015. "Crowd Learning without Herding : A Mechanism Design Approach," Economic Research Papers 269730, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    2. Jacob Glazer & Ilan Kremer & Motty Perry, 2021. "The Wisdom of the Crowd When Acquiring Information Is Costly," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(10), pages 6443-6456, October.
    3. Ilan Kremer & Yishay Mansour & Motty Perry, 2014. "Implementing the "Wisdom of the Crowd"," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(5), pages 988-1012.
    4. Kremer, Ilan & Mansour, Yishay & Perry, Motty, 2013. "Implementing the "Wisdom of the Crowd"," Economic Research Papers 270435, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    5. Parakhonyak, Alexei & Vikander, Nick, 2023. "Information design through scarcity and social learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    6. Alexei Parakhonyak & Nick Vikander, 2016. "Inducing Herding with Capacity Constraints," Economics Series Working Papers 808, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    7. Olivier Gossner & Nicolas Melissas, 2006. "Informational Cascades Elicit Private Information ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(1), pages 297-325, February.
    8. Itai Arieli & Fedor Sandomirskiy & Rann Smorodinsky, 2020. "On social networks that support learning," Papers 2011.05255, arXiv.org.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Munther A. Dahleh & Ilan Lobel & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Bayesian Learning in Social Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(4), pages 1201-1236.
    10. Gill, David & Sgroi, Daniel, 2008. "Sequential decisions with tests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 663-678, July.
    11. Michel Grabisch & Agnieszka Rusinowska, 2020. "A Survey on Nonstrategic Models of Opinion Dynamics," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-29, December.
    12. Smith, L. & Sorensen, P., 1997. "Informational Herding and Optimal Experientation," Working papers 97-22, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    13. Sylvain Chassang & Gerard Padro I Miquel & Erik Snowberg, 2012. "Selective Trials: A Principal-Agent Approach to Randomized Controlled Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1279-1309, June.
    14. 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.
    15. Hsieh, Shu-Fan & Chan, Chia-Ying & Wang, Ming-Chun, 2020. "Retail investor attention and herding behavior," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 109-132.
    16. Liu, Ting & Schiraldi, Pasquale, 2007. "Social learning and monopolist's product launching strategy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4921, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Nicolás Figueroa & Carla Guadalupi, 2017. "Convincing early adopters: Price signals and Information transmission," Documentos de Trabajo 486, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    18. Ting Liu & Pasquale Schiraldi, 2012. "New product launch: herd seeking or herd preventing?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(3), pages 627-648, November.
    19. Nicolás Figueroa & Carla Guadalupi, 2020. "Signaling Quality in the Presence of Observational Learning," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 56(3), pages 515-534, May.
    20. Yiangos Papanastasiou & Kostas Bimpikis & Nicos Savva, 2018. "Crowdsourcing Exploration," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1727-1746, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Informationio Cascades ; Mechanism Design;

    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:wrk:warwec:1095. 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.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.