Value of Expertise For Forecasting Decisions in Conflicts

Kesten Green and J. Armstrong

No 27/04, Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics

Abstract: In important conflicts, people typically rely on experts' judgments to predict the decisions that adversaries will make. We compared the accuracy of 106 expert and 169 novice forecasts for eight real conflicts. The forecasts of experts using unaided judgment were little better than those of novices, and neither were much better than simply guessing. The forecasts of experts with more experience were no more accurate than those with less. Speculating that consideration of the relative frequency of decisions might improve accuracy, we obtained 89 forecasts from novices instructed to assume there were 100 similar situations and to ascribe frequencies to decisions. Their forecasts were no more accurate than 96 forecasts from novices asked to pick the most likely decision. We conclude that expert judgment should not be used for predicting decisions that people will make in conflicts. Their use might lead decision makers to overlook other, more useful, approaches.

Keywords: Bad faith; Framing; Hindsight bias; Methods; Politics. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 D78 D81 D83 D84 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 9 pages
Date: 2004-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/ebs/pubs/wpapers/2004/wp27-04.pdf (application/pdf)

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:msh:ebswps:2004-27

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://business.mona ... -business-statistics

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics PO Box 11E, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Professor Xibin Zhang ().