Social Learning in Economics
Markus Mobius () and
Tanya Rosenblat
Additional contact information
Markus Mobius: Microsoft Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Annual Review of Economics, 2014, vol. 6, issue 1, 827-847
Abstract:
Social learning is a rapidly growing field for empirical and theoretical research in economics. We encounter social learning in many economically important phenomena, such as the adoption of new products and technologies or job search in labor markets. We review the existing empirical and theoretical literatures and argue that they have evolved largely independently of each other. This suggests several directions for future research that can help bridge the gap between both literatures. For example, the theory literature has come up with several models of social learning, ranging from naïve DeGroot models to sophisticated Bayesian models whose assumptions and predictions need to be empirically tested. Alternatively, empiricists have often observed that social learning is more localized than existing theory models assume, and that information can decay along a transmission path. Incorporating these findings into our models might require theorists to look beyond asymptotic convergence in social learning.
Keywords: naïve learning; rational learning; observational learning; herding; streams model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C93 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-economics-120213-012609 (application/pdf)
Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:anr:reveco:v:6:y:2014:p:827-847
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.annualreviews.org/action/ecommerce
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in Annual Review of Economics from Annual Reviews Annual Reviews 4139 El Camino Way Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by http://www.annualreviews.org ().