[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/smu/ecowpa/0701.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Endogenous Network Formation in the Laboratory

Author

Listed:
  • Bogachan Celen

    (Columbia GSB)

  • Kyle Hyndman

    (SMU)

Abstract
This paper provides an experimental test of a theory of endogenous network forma- tion. A group of subjects face a decision problem under uncertainty. The subjects are endowed with a private information about the fundamentals of the problem, and they are supposed to make a decision one after the other. The key feature of the experiment is that a subject can observe the decisions of the preceding subjects by forming links. A link is costly, yet it enables a subject to observe previous decisions of those to whom he is linked. We show that subjects respond to changes in the information structure and the cost of link formation in the expected manner. However, we also show that behavior systematically deviates from the Bayesian benchmark as subjects form more links than theory predicts. Subjects also exhibit a tendency to conform rather than follow their own information. In order to explain this pattern, we provide an econo- metric model that posits that subjects care about their relative standing in the group. We show that the modified model provides a better fit than a standard QRE.

Suggested Citation

  • Bogachan Celen & Kyle Hyndman, 2007. "Endogenous Network Formation in the Laboratory," Departmental Working Papers 0701, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:smu:ecowpa:0701
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ftp1.economics.smu.edu/WorkingPapers/2007/Hyndman/CH.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Conley & Udry Christopher, 2001. "Social Learning Through Networks: The Adoption of New Agricultural Technologies in Ghana," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(3), pages 668-673.
    2. Marco Ottaviani & Giuseppe Moscarini & Lones Smith, 1998. "Social learning in a changing world," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(3), pages 657-665.
    3. Foster, Andrew D & Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1995. "Learning by Doing and Learning from Others: Human Capital and Technical Change in Agriculture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1176-1209, December.
    4. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    5. Xavier Vives, 1993. "How Fast do Rational Agents Learn?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(2), pages 329-347.
    6. Yannis M. Ioannides & Linda Datcher Loury, 2004. "Job Information Networks, Neighborhood Effects, and Inequality," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1056-1093, December.
    7. Efe A. Ok & Levent KoÚkesen, 2000. "Negatively interdependent preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 17(3), pages 533-558.
    8. 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.
    9. Dorothea Kübler & Georg Weizsäcker, 2004. "Limited Depth of Reasoning and Failure of Cascade Formation in the Laboratory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 425-441.
    10. Lones Smith & Peter Sorensen, 2000. "Pathological Outcomes of Observational Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 371-398, March.
    11. Celen, Bogachan & Kariv, Shachar, 2004. "Observational learning under imperfect information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 72-86, April.
    12. Gale, Douglas, 1996. "What have we learned from social learning?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 617-628, April.
    13. Munshi, Kaivan, 2004. "Social learning in a heterogeneous population: technology diffusion in the Indian Green Revolution," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 185-213, February.
    14. Cormac O Grada & Morgan Kelly, 2000. "Market Contagion: Evidence from the Panics of 1854 and 1857," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1110-1124, December.
    15. Roberto Burguet & Xavier Vives, 2000. "Social learning and costly information acquisition," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 15(1), pages 185-205.
    16. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & José A. Scheinkman, 1996. "Crime and Social Interactions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 507-548.
    17. Gale, Douglas & Kariv, Shachar, 2003. "Bayesian learning in social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 329-346, November.
    18. Jacob K. Goeree & Thomas R. Palfrey & Brian W. Rogers & Richard D. McKelvey, 2007. "Self-Correcting Information Cascades," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 733-762.
    19. Matthew O. Jackson, 2003. "A Survey of Models of Network Formation: Stability and Efficiency," Game Theory and Information 0303011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. 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.
    21. Robin Cubitt & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 1998. "On the Validity of the Random Lottery Incentive System," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(2), pages 115-131, September.
    22. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    23. Kreps, David M & Porteus, Evan L, 1978. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 185-200, 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. Eliaz, Kfir & Schotter, Andrew, 2010. "Paying for confidence: An experimental study of the demand for non-instrumental information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 304-324, November.
    2. Neligh, Nathaniel, 2020. "Vying for dominance: An experiment in dynamic network formation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 719-739.
    3. Di Cagno, Daniela & Sciubba, Emanuela, 2010. "Trust, trustworthiness and social networks: Playing a trust game when networks are formed in the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 156-167, August.

    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. Bogaçhan Çelen & Kyle Hyndman, 2012. "Social Learning Through Endogenous Information Acquisition: An Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1525-1548, August.
    2. 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.
    3. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John List, 2006. "Information Cascades: Evidence from An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," NBER Working Papers 12767, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Syngjoo Choi & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2012. "Social learning in networks: a Quantal Response Equilibrium analysis of experimental data," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 16(2), pages 135-157, September.
    6. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    7. Feri, Francesco & Meléndez-Jiménez, Miguel A. & Ponti, Giovanni & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2011. "Error cascades in observational learning: An experiment on the Chinos game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 136-146, September.
    8. Drehmann, Mathias & Oechssler, Jorg & Roider, Andreas, 2007. "Herding with and without payoff externalities -- an internet experiment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 391-415, April.
    9. Shachar Kariv, 2005. "Overconfidence and Informational Cascades," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000406, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. Cao, H. Henry & Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David, 2011. "Taking the road less traveled by: Does conversation eradicate pernicious cascades?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    11. repec:awi:wpaper:0420 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. ,, 2013. "A general framework for rational learning in social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(1), January.
    13. Jacob K. Goeree & Thomas R. Palfrey & Brian W. Rogers & Richard D. McKelvey, 2007. "Self-Correcting Information Cascades," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 733-762.
    14. Larson, Nathan, 2015. "Inertia in social learning from a summary statistic," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 596-626.
    15. 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.
    16. James C. D. Fisher & John Wooders, 2017. "Interacting information cascades: on the movement of conventions between groups," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(1), pages 211-231, January.
    17. Bou{g}açhan Çelen & Shachar Kariv & Andrew Schotter, 2010. "An Experimental Test of Advice and Social Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(10), pages 1687-1701, October.
    18. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 2005. "Information Cascades and Observational Learning," Working Paper Series 2005-22, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    19. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    20. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2009. "Herd Behavior in Financial Markets: An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(1), pages 206-233, March.
    21. Stephanie De Mel & Kaivan Munshi & Soenje Reiche & Hamid Sabourian, 2021. "Herding with Heterogeneous Ability: An Application to Organ Transplantation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2308, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social learning; social interaction; networks; network formation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

    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:smu:ecowpa:0701. 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: Ömer Özak (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.smu.edu/economics .

    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.