IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/safewp/251.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Belief formation and belief updating under ambiguity: Evidence from experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Wenhui
  • Wilde, Christian

Abstract

This paper investigates beliefs in an ambiguous environment. In contrast to many previous studies, the beliefs regarding possible scenarios are measured independently from attitudes. We use laboratory experiments to estimate the entire distribution of subjective beliefs and examine how beliefs are updated, incorporating new information. We find that beliefs and updating rules are quite heterogeneous. For most subjects, we can reject the objective equality hypothesis that beliefs are uniformly distributed. The unbiased belief hypothesis cannot be rejected overall; Most subjects display no bias towards pessimism/optimism in beliefs. The Bayesian updating hypothesis can be rejected; Most subjects under-adjust beliefs in response to new information. Finally, we find that subjects adjust their beliefs symmetrically to good news and to bad news.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Wenhui & Wilde, Christian, 2020. "Belief formation and belief updating under ambiguity: Evidence from experiments," SAFE Working Paper Series 251, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:safewp:251
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3399983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/230682/1/SAFE-WP-251-20210110.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2139/ssrn.3399983?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. I. Gilboa & W. A. Postlewaite & D. Schmeidler, 2009. "Probability and Uncertainty in Economic Modeling," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    2. Claudio Campanale, 2011. "Learning, Ambiguity and Life-Cycle Portfolio Allocation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 339-367, April.
    3. Gilboa Itzhak & Schmeidler David, 1993. "Updating Ambiguous Beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 33-49, February.
    4. H. Henry Cao & Tan Wang & Harold H. Zhang, 2005. "Model Uncertainty, Limited Market Participation, and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1219-1251.
    5. Branger, Nicole & Larsen, Linda Sandris & Munk, Claus, 2013. "Robust portfolio choice with ambiguity and learning about return predictability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1397-1411.
    6. Giraud, Raphaël & Thomas, Lionel, 2017. "Ambiguity, optimism, and pessimism in adverse selection models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 64-100.
    7. Ghirardato, Paolo & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2004. "Differentiating ambiguity and ambiguity attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 133-173, October.
    8. Thomas Buser & Leonie Gerhards & Joël Weele, 2018. "Responsiveness to feedback as a personal trait," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 165-192, April.
    9. Dominitz, Jeff & Hung, Angela A., 2009. "Empirical models of discrete choice and belief updating in observational learning experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 94-109, February.
    10. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    11. Larry G. Epstein & Martin Schneider, 2007. "Learning Under Ambiguity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(4), pages 1275-1303.
    12. , G. & , & ,, 2008. "Non-Bayesian updating: A theoretical framework," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), June.
    13. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    14. Peter Klibanoff & Massimo Marinacci & Sujoy Mukerji, 2005. "A Smooth Model of Decision Making under Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1849-1892, November.
    15. Epstein Larry G & Noor Jawwad & Sandroni Alvaro, 2010. "Non-Bayesian Learning," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-20, January.
    16. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    17. Peijnenburg, Kim, 2018. "Life-Cycle Asset Allocation with Ambiguity Aversion and Learning," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(5), pages 1963-1994, October.
    18. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & David Schmeidler, 2007. "Probabilities in Economic Modeling," Levine's Bibliography 843644000000000357, UCLA Department of Economics.
    19. Roberta De Filippis & Antonio Guarino & Philippe Jehiel & Toru Kitagawa, 2016. "Updating ambiguous beliefs in a social learning experiment," CeMMAP working papers 18/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Larry G. Epstein, 2006. "An Axiomatic Model of Non-Bayesian Updating," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(2), pages 413-436.
    21. Zengjing Chen & Larry Epstein, 2002. "Ambiguity, Risk, and Asset Returns in Continuous Time," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1403-1443, July.
    22. , & ,, 2007. "Updating preferences with multiple priors," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(3), September.
    23. Soo Hong Chew & Bin Miao & Songfa Zhong, 2017. "Partial Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 1239-1260, July.
    24. Edi Karni, 2018. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Second-Order Beliefs and the Inclination to Choose," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 275-285, May.
    25. David S. Ahn, 2008. "Ambiguity Without a State Space," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(1), pages 3-28.
    26. Cesaltina Pacheco Pires, 2002. "A Rule For Updating Ambiguous Beliefs," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 137-152, September.
    27. M. J. Brennan, 1998. "The Role of Learning in Dynamic Portfolio Decisions," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 1(3), pages 295-306.
    28. Larry G. Epstein, 1999. "A Definition of Uncertainty Aversion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(3), pages 579-608.
    29. Massimo Marinacci, 2002. "Learning from ambiguous urns," Statistical Papers, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 143-151, January.
    30. Tsogbadral Galaabaatar & Edi Karni, 2013. "Subjective Expected Utility With Incomplete Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(1), pages 255-284, 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. Li, Wenhui & Ockenfels, Peter & Wilde, Christian, 2021. "The effect of ambiguity on price formation and trading behavior in financial markets," SAFE Working Paper Series 326, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    2. Li, Wenhui & Wilde, Christian, 2021. "Separating the effects of beliefs and attitudes on pricing under ambiguity," SAFE Working Paper Series 311, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.

    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. Heyen, Daniel, 2018. "Ambiguity aversion under maximum-likelihood updating," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 80342, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Massimo Guidolin & Francesca Rinaldi, 2013. "Ambiguity in asset pricing and portfolio choice: a review of the literature," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 183-217, February.
    3. Konstantinos Georgalos, 2019. "An experimental test of the predictive power of dynamic ambiguity models," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 51-83, August.
    4. Daniel Heyen, 2018. "Ambiguity aversion under maximum-likelihood updating," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(3), pages 373-386, May.
    5. Li, Wenhui & Wilde, Christian, 2021. "Separating the effects of beliefs and attitudes on pricing under ambiguity," SAFE Working Paper Series 311, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    6. Alexander Zimper, 2011. "Do Bayesians Learn Their Way Out of Ambiguity?," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 8(4), pages 269-285, December.
    7. Zimper, Alexander, 2009. "Half empty, half full and why we can agree to disagree forever," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 283-299, August.
    8. Chambers, Robert G. & Melkonyan, Tigran, 2009. "Smoothing preference kinks with information," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 173-189, September.
    9. Spyros Galanis, 2021. "Dynamic consistency, valuable information and subjective beliefs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1497, June.
    10. Hui Chen & Nengjiu Ju & Jianjun Miao, 2014. "Dynamic Asset Allocation with Ambiguous Return Predictability," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 799-823, October.
    11. Kai Barron, 2021. "Belief updating: does the ‘good-news, bad-news’ asymmetry extend to purely financial domains?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 31-58, March.
    12. Millner, Antony & Dietz, Simon & Heal, Geoffrey, 2010. "Ambiguity and climate policy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 37595, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Umut Keskin & Olivier l’Haridon & Chen Li, 2018. "The Effect of Learning on Ambiguity Attitudes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2181-2198, May.
    14. Georgalos, Konstantinos, 2021. "Dynamic decision making under ambiguity: An experimental investigation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 28-46.
    15. Miao, Jianjun & Wang, Neng, 2011. "Risk, uncertainty, and option exercise," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 442-461, April.
    16. Ilke Aydogan & Lo?c Berger & Valentina Bosetti & Ning Liu, 2018. "Three Layers of Uncertainty: an Experiment," Working Papers 2018.24, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    17. Hackbarth, Dirk & Miao, Jianjun, 2012. "The dynamics of mergers and acquisitions in oligopolistic industries," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 585-609.
    18. Enrica Carbone & Konstantinos Georgalos & Gerardo Infante, 2019. "Individual vs. group decision-making: an experiment on dynamic choice under risk and ambiguity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 87-122, July.
    19. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Umut Keskin & Olivier L'Haridon & Author-Name: Chen Li, 2013. "Learning under ambiguity: An experiment using initial public offerings on a stock market," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 201331, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    20. Karni, Edi & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2015. "Ambiguity and Nonexpected Utility," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ambiguity; belief distribution; belief updates; learning strategy; Bayes' rule; laboratory experiments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:zbw:safewp:251. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csafede.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.