Persistent Overconfidence and Biased Memory: Evidence from Managerst

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Huffman, David; Raymond, Collin; Shvets, Julia
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; Cornell University; University of Cambridge
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20190668
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 3141-3175
• 关键词: POSITIVE SELF-IMAGE; INFORMATION; confidence; beliefs; expectations; deception; MODEL

摘要

A long-standing puzzle is how overconfidence can persist in settings characterized by repeated feedback. This paper studies managers who participate repeatedly in a high-powered tournament incen-tive system, learning relative performance each time. Using reduced form and structural methods we find that (i) managers make over-confident predictions about future performance; (ii) managers have overly positive memories of past performance; (iii) the two phenom-ena are linked at an individual level. Our results are consistent with models of motivated beliefs in which individuals are motivated to distort memories of feedback and preserve unrealistic expectations.