Belief Elicitation and Behavioral Incentive Compatibility

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Danz, David; Vesterlund, Lise; Wilson, Alistair J.
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20201248
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 2851-2883
• 关键词: ELICITING BELIEFS; Scoring rules; preferences; INFORMATION; COMPETITION; promises; games; Menu; shy

摘要

Subjective beliefs are crucial for economic inference, yet behavior can challenge the elicitation. We propose that belief elicitation should be incentive compatible not only theoretically but also in a de facto behavioral sense. To demonstrate, we show that the binarized scoring rule, a state-of-the-art elicitation, violates two weak conditions for behavioral incentive compatibility: (i) within the elicitation, information on the incentives increases deviations from truthful reporting; and (ii) in a pure choice over the set of incentives, most deviate from the theorized maximizer. Moreover, we document that deviations are systematic and center-biased, and that the elicited beliefs substantially distort inference.