Experimental methods: Eliciting beliefs

Gary Charness, Uri Gneezy and Vlastimil Rasocha

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 189, issue C, 234-256

Abstract: Expectations are a critical factor in determining actions in a great variety of economic interactions. Hence, being able to measure beliefs is important in many economic environments. In this article, we review the approaches that have been used to measure beliefs and make comparisons of their effectiveness. We also discuss belief elicitation when the truth is not verifiable. We find that introspection (non-incentivized responses) seems to do as well as rather complex incentivized methods. We conjecture that simple and easy-to-comprehend incentivized methods are superior to introspection, in fact there are very few studies making such comparisons; this is an avenue for future research. We also discuss ways in which relatively complex methods could be made easier for usage in experimental work.

Keywords: Experimental methodology; Belief elicitation; Comprehension; Scoring rules; Incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B49 C90 C91 C92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:189:y:2021:i:c:p:234-256

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.06.032

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