Direkt zum Inhalt
  1. Publizieren |
  2. Suche |
  3. Browsen |
  4. Neuzugänge rss |
  5. Open Access |
  6. Rechtsfragen |
  7. EnglishCookie löschen - von nun an wird die Spracheinstellung Ihres Browsers verwendet.

A short note on the rationality of the false consensus effect

Vanberg, Christoph

[thumbnail of Vanberg_2019_dp662.pdf] PDF, Englisch - Hauptdokument
Download (434kB) | Nutzungsbedingungen

Zitieren von Dokumenten: Bitte verwenden Sie für Zitate nicht die URL in der Adresszeile Ihres Webbrowsers, sondern entweder die angegebene DOI, URN oder die persistente URL, deren langfristige Verfügbarkeit wir garantieren. [mehr ...]

Abstract

In experiments which measure subjects’ beliefs, both beliefs about others’ behavior and beliefs about others’ beliefs, are often correlated with a subject’s own choices. Such phenomena have been interpreted as evidence of a causal relationship between beliefs and behavior. An alternative explanation attributes them to what psychologists refer to as a ‘false consensus effect’. It is my impression that the latter explanation is often prematurely dismissed because it is thought to be based on an implausible psychological bias. The goal of this note is to show that the false consensus effect does not rely on such a bias. I demonstrate that rational belief formation implies a correlation of behavior and beliefs of all orders whenever behaviorally relevant traits are drawn from an unknown common distribution. Thus, if we assume that subjects rationally update beliefs, correlations of beliefs and behavior cannot support a causal relationship.

Dokumententyp: Arbeitspapier
Name der Reihe: Discussion Paper Series / University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics
Band: 0662
Ort der Veröffentlichung: Heidelberg
Erstellungsdatum: 09 Mai 2019 13:00
Erscheinungsjahr: Mai 2019
Seitenanzahl: 6
Institute/Einrichtungen: Fakultät für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften > Alfred-Weber Institut
DDC-Sachgruppe: 330 Wirtschaft
Freie Schlagwörter: beliefs, behavioral economics, experimental economics
Schriftenreihe: Discussion Paper Series / University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics
Leitlinien | Häufige Fragen | Kontakt | Impressum |
OA-LogoDINI-Zertifikat 2013Logo der Open-Archives-Initiative