Does Consistency Predict Accuracy of Beliefs?: Economists Surveyed About PSA

Nathan Berg, Guido Biele and Gerd Gigerenzer

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Subjective beliefs and behavior regarding the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test for prostate cancer were surveyed among attendees of the 2006 meeting of the American Economic Association. Logical inconsistency was measured in percentage deviations from a restriction imposed by Bayes’ Rule on pairs of conditional beliefs. Economists with inconsistent beliefs tended to be more accurate than average, and consistent Bayesians were substantially less accurate. Within a loss function framework, we look for and cannot find evidence that inconsistent beliefs cause economic losses. Subjective beliefs about cancer risks do not predict PSA testing decisions, but social influences do.

Keywords: logical consistency; predictive accuracy; elicitation; non-Bayesian; ecological rationality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D6 D8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-08-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-for, nep-hpe and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Does Consistency Predict Accuracy of Beliefs?: Economists Surveyed About PSA (2013)
Working Paper: Does consistency predict accuracy of beliefs?: Economists surveyed about PSA (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:24976

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