Rational Groupthink
We study how long-lived rational agents learn from repeatedly observing a private signal and each others' actions. With normal signals, a group of any size learns more slowly than just four agents who directly observe each others' private signals in each period. Similar results apply to ge...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press (OUP)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135613 |
| _version_ | 1826209290217586688 |
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| author | Harel, Matan Mossel, Elchanan Strack, Philipp Tamuz, Omer |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics Harel, Matan Mossel, Elchanan Strack, Philipp Tamuz, Omer |
| author_sort | Harel, Matan |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We study how long-lived rational agents learn from repeatedly observing a private signal and each others' actions. With normal signals, a group of any size learns more slowly than just four agents who directly observe each others' private signals in each period. Similar results apply to general signal structures. We identify rational groupthink - in which agents ignore their private signals and choose the same action for long periods of time - as the cause of this failure of information aggregation. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:20:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/135613 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:20:10Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1356132023-12-13T15:39:55Z Rational Groupthink Harel, Matan Mossel, Elchanan Strack, Philipp Tamuz, Omer Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics We study how long-lived rational agents learn from repeatedly observing a private signal and each others' actions. With normal signals, a group of any size learns more slowly than just four agents who directly observe each others' private signals in each period. Similar results apply to general signal structures. We identify rational groupthink - in which agents ignore their private signals and choose the same action for long periods of time - as the cause of this failure of information aggregation. 2021-10-27T20:24:15Z 2021-10-27T20:24:15Z 2020 2021-05-25T12:34:50Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135613 en 10.1093/QJE/QJAA026 Quarterly Journal of Economics Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Oxford University Press (OUP) arXiv |
| spellingShingle | Harel, Matan Mossel, Elchanan Strack, Philipp Tamuz, Omer Rational Groupthink |
| title | Rational Groupthink |
| title_full | Rational Groupthink |
| title_fullStr | Rational Groupthink |
| title_full_unstemmed | Rational Groupthink |
| title_short | Rational Groupthink |
| title_sort | rational groupthink |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135613 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT harelmatan rationalgroupthink AT mosselelchanan rationalgroupthink AT strackphilipp rationalgroupthink AT tamuzomer rationalgroupthink |