Non-Bayesian social learning

Ali Jadbabaie, Pooya Molavi, Alvaro Sandroni and Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi

Games and Economic Behavior, 2012, vol. 76, issue 1, 210-225

Abstract: We develop a dynamic model of opinion formation in social networks when the information required for learning a parameter may not be at the disposal of any single agent. Individuals engage in communication with their neighbors in order to learn from their experiences. However, instead of incorporating the views of their neighbors in a fully Bayesian manner, agents use a simple updating rule which linearly combines their personal experience and the views of their neighbors. We show that, as long as individuals take their personal signals into account in a Bayesian way, repeated interactions lead them to successfully aggregate information and learn the true parameter. This result holds in spite of the apparent naïveté of agentsʼ updating rule, the agentsʼ need for information from sources the existence of which they may not be aware of, worst prior views, and the assumption that no agent can tell whether her own views or those of her neighbors are more accurate.

Keywords: Social networks; Learning; Information aggregation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 L14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (86)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:76:y:2012:i:1:p:210-225

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2012.06.001

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