APPARENT OVERCONFIDENCE

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Benoit, Jean-Pierre; Dubra, Juan
• 署名单位: University of London; London Business School; Universidad de Montevideo
• 刊物名称: ECONOMETRICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0012-9682
• DOI: 10.3982/ECTA8583
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1591-1625
• 关键词: self; average; confidence; BIAS; assessments; performance; ability; EGO

摘要

It is common for a majority of people to rank themselves as better than average on simple tasks and worse than average on difficult tasks. The literature takes for granted that this apparent misconfidence is problematic. We argue, however, that this behavior is consistent with purely rational Bayesian updaters. In fact, better-than-average data alone cannot be used to show overconfidence; we indicate which type of data can be used. Our theory is consistent with empirical patterns found in the literature.