Inferring Cognitive Heterogeneity From Aggregate Choices

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dardanoni, Valentino; Manzini, Paola; Mariotti, Marco; Tyson, Christopher J.
• 署名单位: University of Palermo; University of Sussex; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of London; Queen Mary University London
• 刊物名称: ECONOMETRICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0012-9682
• DOI: 10.3982/ECTA16382
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 1269-1296
• 关键词: consideration sets; INFORMATION; uniqueness; choose

摘要

Theories of bounded rationality often assume a rich dataset of choices from many overlapping menus, limiting their practical applicability. In contrast, we study the problem of identifying the distribution of cognitive characteristics in a population of agents from a minimal dataset that consists of aggregate choice shares from a single menu, and includes no observable covariates of any kind. With homogeneous preferences, we find that consideration capacity and consideration probability distributions can both be recovered effectively if the menu is sufficiently large. This remains true generically when tastes are heterogeneous with a known distribution. When the taste distribution is unknown, we show that joint choice share data from three occasions are generically sufficient for full identification of the cognitive distribution, and also provide substantial information about tastes.