IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wzbeoc/spii2019301.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Everyday econometricians: Selection neglect and overoptimism when learning from others

Author

Listed:
  • Barron, Kai
  • Huck, Steffen
  • Jehiel, Philippe

Abstract

In this paper, we design an investment game which allows us to study the influence of selection when learning from others. Using the theoretical study of selection neglect in Jehiel (2018) as a guide, we test (i) for the presence of selection neglect in this investment context, and (ii) some comparative static predictions of the model. We find strong evidence for selection neglect—even though subjects are fully informed about the data generating process. As theoretically predicted, the degree of bias due to selection neglect increases when other decision makers become more informed, or become more rational. It decreases when signals are correlated.

Suggested Citation

  • Barron, Kai & Huck, Steffen & Jehiel, Philippe, 2019. "Everyday econometricians: Selection neglect and overoptimism when learning from others," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2019-301, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2019301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/193681/1/BarronHuckJehiel_2019_SelectionNeglect.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Angrisani & Antonio Guarino & Philippe Jehiel & Toru Kitagawa, 2021. "Information Redundancy Neglect versus Overconfidence: A Social Learning Experiment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 163-197, August.
    2. Jehiel, Philippe & Koessler, Frédéric, 2008. "Revisiting games of incomplete information with analogy-based expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 533-557, March.
    3. Spiegler, Ran, 2014. "Bounded Rationality and Industrial Organization," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199334261.
    4. Annekatrin Schrenker, 2023. "Causal Misperceptions of the Part-Time Pay Gap," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 372, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    5. Philippe Jehiel, 2018. "Investment Strategy and Selection Bias: An Equilibrium Perspective on Overoptimism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1582-1597, June.
    6. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2005. "CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2661-2700, December.
    7. Ignacio Esponda & Emanuel Vespa, 2018. "Endogenous sample selection: A laboratory study," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), pages 183-216, March.
    8. Jehiel, Philippe, 2005. "Analogy-based expectation equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 81-104, August.
    9. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    10. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2005. "Does Overconfidence Affect Corporate Investment? CEO Overconfidence Measures Revisited," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(5), pages 649-659, November.
    11. Annekatrin Schrenker, 2023. "Causal Misperceptions of the Part-Time Pay Gap," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2031, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2005. "Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation," International Economic Association Series, in: Bina Agarwal & Alessandro Vercelli (ed.), Psychology, Rationality and Economic Behaviour, chapter 2, pages 19-57, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Olivier Compte & Andrew Postlewaite, 2004. "Confidence-Enhanced Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1536-1557, December.
    14. Benjamin Enke & Florian Zimmermann, 2019. "Correlation Neglect in Belief Formation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 313-332.
    15. M. Kathleen Ngangoué & Georg Weizsäcker, 2021. "Learning from Unrealized versus Realized Prices," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 174-201, May.
    16. Peter Schwardmann & Joël van der Weele, 2016. "Deception and Self-Deception," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-012/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    17. Schwardmann, Peter & van der Weele, Joel, 2019. "Deception and self-deception," Munich Reprints in Economics 78222, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    18. Ulrike Malmendier & Timothy Taylor, 2015. "On the Verges of Overconfidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 3-8, Fall.
    19. Ignacio Esponda & Demian Pouzo, 2017. "Conditional Retrospective Voting in Large Elections," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 54-75, May.
    20. Koellinger, Philipp & Minniti, Maria & Schade, Christian, 2007. ""I think I can, I think I can": Overconfidence and entrepreneurial behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 502-527, August.
    21. Cooper, Arnold C. & Woo, Carolyn Y. & Dunkelberg, William C., 1988. "Entrepreneurs' perceived chances for success," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 97-108.
    22. Annekatrin Schrenker, 2023. "Causal Misperceptions of the Part-Time Pay Gap," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0010, Berlin School of Economics.
    23. Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 775-816.
    24. Heckman, James J, 1990. "Varieties of Selection Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 313-318, May.
    25. Chen, Daniel L. & Schonger, Martin & Wickens, Chris, 2016. "oTree—An open-source platform for laboratory, online, and field experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 88-97.
    26. 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.
    27. Jan Feld & Edwin Ip & Andreas Leibbrandt & Joseph Vecci, 2022. "Identifying and Overcoming Gender Barriers in Tech: A Field Experiment on Inaccurate Statistical Discrimination," Discussion Papers 2205, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    28. Benjamin Enke, 2020. "What You See Is All There Is," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(3), pages 1363-1398.
    29. Katrin Gödker & Terrance Odean & Paul Smeets, 2023. "Disposed to Be Overconfident," CESifo Working Paper Series 10357, CESifo.
    30. Ginger Zhe Jin & Michael Luca & Daniel Martin, 2021. "Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 141-173, May.
    31. David Eil & Justin M. Rao, 2011. "The Good News-Bad News Effect: Asymmetric Processing of Objective Information about Yourself," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 114-138, May.
    32. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    33. Alejandro Martínez-Marquina & Muriel Niederle & Emanuel Vespa, 2019. "Failures in Contingent Reasoning: The Role of Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(10), pages 3437-3474, October.
    34. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2016. "Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 141-164, Summer.
    35. Brown, Stephen J, et al, 1992. "Survivorship Bias in Performance Studies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(4), pages 553-580.
    36. Puri, Manju & Robinson, David T., 2007. "Optimism and economic choice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 71-99, October.
    37. Peter Schwardmann & Joël van der Weele, 2019. "Deception and self-deception," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(10), pages 1055-1061, October.
    38. Jerker Denrell, 2003. "Vicarious Learning, Undersampling of Failure, and the Myths of Management," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 227-243, June.
    39. Jonathan J. Koehler & Molly Mercer, 2009. "Selection Neglect in Mutual Fund Advertisements," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(7), pages 1107-1121, July.
    40. Ignacio Esponda, 2008. "Behavioral Equilibrium in Economies with Adverse Selection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1269-1291, September.
    41. Dan Lovallo & Colin Camerer, 1999. "Overconfidence and Excess Entry: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 306-318, March.
    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. Benjamin Enke & Uri Gneezy & Brian Hall & David Martin & Vadim Nelidov & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2020. "Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8168, CESifo.
    2. Kai Barron & Christina Gravert, 2022. "Confidence and Career Choices: An Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 35-68, January.
    3. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2018. "Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2128R2, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Oct 2021.
    4. Esponda, Ignacio & Vespa, Emanuel & Yuksel, Sevgi, 2024. "Mental Models and Learning: The Case of Base-Rate Neglect," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt8cb387t8, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    5. Annekatrin Schrenker, 2023. "Causal Misperceptions of the Part-Time Pay Gap," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2031, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Marta Serra-Garcia & Nora Szech, 2022. "The (In)Elasticity of Moral Ignorance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 4815-4834, July.
    7. Jehiel, Philippe & Singh, Juni, 2021. "Multi-state choices with aggregate feedback on unfamiliar alternatives," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 1-24.
    8. Ignacio Esponda & Emanuel Vespa & Sevgi Yuksel, 2024. "Mental Models and Learning: The Case of Base-Rate Neglect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(3), pages 752-782, March.
    9. Kai Barron & Tilman Fries, 2023. "Narrative Persuasion," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 469, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    10. 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.
    11. Breitmoser, Yves & Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Sebastian, 2019. "Obviousness around the clock," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2019-203, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    12. Peter Schwardmann & Egon Tripodi & Joël J. van der Weele, 2019. "Self-Persuasion: Evidence from Field Experiments at Two International Debating Competitions," CESifo Working Paper Series 7946, CESifo.
    13. Annekatrin Schrenker, 2023. "Causal Misperceptions of the Part-Time Pay Gap," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 372, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    14. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2018. "Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2128R3, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jun 2022.
    15. Bolte, Lukas & Fan, Tony Q., 2024. "Motivated mislearning: The case of correlation neglect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 647-663.
    16. Annekatrin Schrenker, 2023. "Causal Misperceptions of the Part-Time Pay Gap," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0010, Berlin School of Economics.
    17. Backhaus, Teresa & Schäper, Clara & Schrenker, Annekatrin, 2023. "Causal misperceptions of the part-time pay gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    18. López-Pérez, Raúl & Pintér, Ágnes & Sánchez-Mangas, Rocío, 2022. "Some conditions (not) affecting selection neglect: Evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 140-157.
    19. Katrin Gödker & Terrance Odean & Paul Smeets, 2023. "Disposed to Be Overconfident," CESifo Working Paper Series 10357, CESifo.
    20. Esponda, Ignacio & Vespa, Emanuel, 2023. "Contingent Thinking and the Sure-Thing Principle: Revisiting Classic Anomalies in the Laboratory#," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt32j4d5z2, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    21. Windsteiger, Lisa, 2022. "The redistributive consequences of segregation and misperceptions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).

    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. Kai Barron & Christina Gravert, 2022. "Confidence and Career Choices: An Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 35-68, January.
    2. Castagnetti, Alessandro & Schmacker, Renke, 2022. "Protecting the ego: Motivated information selection and updating," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. Philippe Jehiel, 2018. "Investment Strategy and Selection Bias: An Equilibrium Perspective on Overoptimism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1582-1597, June.
    4. Bolte, Lukas & Fan, Tony Q., 2024. "Motivated mislearning: The case of correlation neglect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 647-663.
    5. 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.
    6. Markus M. Möbius & Muriel Niederle & Paul Niehaus & Tanya S. Rosenblat, 2022. "Managing Self-Confidence: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 7793-7817, November.
    7. Jehiel, Philippe, 2015. "Investment strategy and selection bias: An equilibrium perspective on overconfidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 10868, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Banerjee, Ritwik & Gupta, Nabanita Datta & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2020. "Feedback spillovers across tasks, self-confidence and competitiveness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 127-170.
    9. Esponda, Ignacio & Vespa, Emanuel & Yuksel, Sevgi, 2024. "Mental Models and Learning: The Case of Base-Rate Neglect," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt8cb387t8, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    10. Heger, Stephanie A. & Papageorge, Nicholas W., 2018. "We should totally open a restaurant: How optimism and overconfidence affect beliefs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 177-190.
    11. Ignacio Esponda & Demian Pouzo, 2014. "Berk-Nash Equilibrium: A Framework for Modeling Agents with Misspecified Models," Papers 1411.1152, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2019.
    12. Burro, Giovanni & Castagnetti, Alessandro, 2024. "The ego is no fool: Absence of motivated belief formation in strategic interactions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    13. Otto, Clemens A., 2014. "CEO optimism and incentive compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 366-404.
    14. Peter Schwardmann & Joël van der Weele, 2016. "Deception and Self-Deception," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-012/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Jehiel, Philippe & Singh, Juni, 2021. "Multi-state choices with aggregate feedback on unfamiliar alternatives," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 1-24.
    16. Alice Soldà & Changxia Ke & Lionel Page & William von Hippel, 2020. "Strategically delusional," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(3), pages 604-631, September.
    17. Kaplan, Steven N. & Sørensen, Morten & Zakolyukina, Anastasia A., 2022. "What is CEO overconfidence? Evidence from executive assessments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 409-425.
    18. Andrea Amelio & Florian Zimmermann, 2023. "Motivated Memory in Economics—A Review," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, January.
    19. Niederle, Muriel & Vespa, Emanuel, 2023. "Cognitive Limitations: Failures of Contingent Thinking," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt5q14p1np, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    20. Anton Suvorov & Jeroen van de Ven & Marie Claire Villeval, 2024. "Selective Information Sharing and Group Delusion," Working Papers 2405, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    selection neglect; beliefs; overconfidence; experiment; survivorship bias; bounded rationality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • 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:wzbeoc:spii2019301. 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/owwzbde.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.