Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Nov, 2024, Volume 92, Issue 6

Stationary Social Learning in a Changing Environment

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA20475
p. 1939-1966

Raphaël Levy|Marcin Pęski|Nicolas Vieille

We consider social learning in a changing world. With changing states, societies can be responsive only if agents regularly act upon fresh information, which significantly limits the value of observational learning. When the state is close to persistent, a consensus whereby most agents choose the same action typically emerges. However, the consensus action is not perfectly correlated with the state, because societies exhibit inertia following state changes. When signals are precise enough, learning is incomplete, even if agents draw large samples of past actions, as actions then become too correlated within samples, thereby reducing informativeness and welfare.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Stationary Social Learning in a Changing Environment"

Raphaël Levy, Marcin Pęski, and Nicolas Vieille

This supplement contains material not found within the manuscript.

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