Citation

Discussion Paper Details

Please find the details for DP10493 in an easy to copy and paste format below:

Full Details   |   Bibliographic Reference

Full Details

Title: Treasure Hunt: Social Learning in the Field

Author(s): Markus Mobius, Tuan Phan and Adam Szeidl

Publication Date: March 2015

Keyword(s): information aggregation, information diffusion, networks and social learning

Programme Area(s): Development Economics

Abstract: We seed noisy information to members of a real-world social network to study how information diffusion and information aggregation jointly shape social learning. Our environment features substantial social learning. We show that learning occurs via diffusion which is highly imperfect: signals travel only up to two steps in the conversation network and indirect signals are transmitted noisily. We then compare two theories of information aggregation: a naive model in which people double-count signals that reach them through multiple paths, and a sophisticated model in which people avoid double-counting by tagging the source of information. We show that to distinguish between these models of aggregation, it is critical to explicitly account for imperfect diffusion. When we do so, we find that our data are most consistent with the sophisticated tagged model.

For full details and related downloads, please visit: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10493

Bibliographic Reference

Mobius, M, Phan, T and Szeidl, A. 2015. 'Treasure Hunt: Social Learning in the Field'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10493