Rules of Thumb for Social Learning

Glenn Ellison () and Drew Fudenberg

Scholarly Articles from Harvard University Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies agents who consider the experiences of their neighbors in deciding which of two technologies to use. We analyze two learning environments, one in which the same technology is optimal for all players and another in which each technology is better for some of them. In both environments, players use exogenously specified rules of thumb that ignore historical data but may incorporate a tendency to use the more popular technology. In some cases these naive rules can lead to fairly efficient decisions in the long run, but adjustment can be slow when a superior technology is first introduced.

Date: 1993
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (404)

Published in Journal of Political Economy

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http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3196332/fudenberg_rules.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Rules of Thumb for Social Learning (2010)
Journal Article: Rules of Thumb for Social Learning (1993)
Working Paper: Rules of Thumb for Social Learning (1992)
Working Paper: Rules of Thumb for Social Learning (1992)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hrv:faseco:3196332

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