How Fast do Rational Agents Learn?

Xavier Vives

The Review of Economic Studies, 1993, vol. 60, issue 2, 329-347

Abstract: A simple dynamic model of rational learning through market interaction by asymmetrically informed risk-neutral agents, uncertain about a valuation parameter but whose pooled information reveals it, is presented. The model is a variation of the classical partial equilibrium model of learning in rational expectations in which the market price is informative about the unknown parameter only through the actions of agents. It is found that learning from market prices and convergence to the rational expectations equilibrium is slow, at the rate 1/√n1/3 (where n is the number periods of market interaction), whenever the average precision of private information in the market is finite. Convergence obtains at the standard rate 1/√n if there is a positive mass of perfectly informed agents. Comparative static results on more refined measures of the speed of convergence with respect to basic technological and informational parameters are also provided.

Date: 1993
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (134)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/2298060 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: HOW FAST DO RATIONAL AGENTS LEARN? (1990)
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:oup:restud:v:60:y:1993:i:2:p:329-347.

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economic Studies is currently edited by Thomas Chaney, Xavier d’Haultfoeuille, Andrea Galeotti, Bård Harstad, Nir Jaimovich, Katrine Loken, Elias Papaioannou, Vincent Sterk and Noam Yuchtman

More articles in The Review of Economic Studies from Review of Economic Studies Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().