Do humans rationally discount biased signals? Evidence from the Crawford-Sobel Game.

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Title: Do humans rationally discount biased signals? Evidence from the Crawford-Sobel Game.
Authors: Groseclose, Tim1 (AUTHOR) tgrosecl@gmu.edu
Source: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Jun2021, Vol. 186, p306-317. 12p.
Subjects: Game theory, Games, Evidence
Abstract: In this paper I re-examine data from Cai and Wang's (2006) laboratory simulation of the Crawford-Sobel "strategic information transmission" game. Cai and Wang focus on the amount of information that senders in the game transmit to receivers, and largely ignore any effects of the bias of the information. More specific, Cai and Wang (and nearly all other researchers of whom I am aware) do not examine what I call the no-policy-bias implication of the Crawford-Sobel game. This implication is that the final policy that receivers choose, in expectation, should equal the policy that they would have chosen had the senders sent no signal. That is, the receivers should rationally discount any bias in the signals, and the senders should not be able systematically to fool the receivers. However, contrary to the theory of the Crawford-Sobel game, in practice, all versions of the Cai-Wang experiment produced a policy bias. Further, the bias was systematic—it was always in the direction that the senders preferred. Elsewhere (Groseclose, 2011) I estimate the media lambda , a number between zero and one that expresses the degree to which a signal sender can fool a receiver. The results of the Cai-Wang experiment produce a media lambda of approximately.32. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: Do humans rationally discount biased signals? Evidence from the Crawford-Sobel Game.
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Groseclose%2C+Tim%22">Groseclose, Tim</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo> (AUTHOR)<i> tgrosecl@gmu.edu</i>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="JN" term="%22Journal+of+Economic+Behavior+%26+Organization%22">Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization</searchLink>. Jun2021, Vol. 186, p306-317. 12p.
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  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: In this paper I re-examine data from Cai and Wang's (2006) laboratory simulation of the Crawford-Sobel "strategic information transmission" game. Cai and Wang focus on the amount of information that senders in the game transmit to receivers, and largely ignore any effects of the bias of the information. More specific, Cai and Wang (and nearly all other researchers of whom I am aware) do not examine what I call the no-policy-bias implication of the Crawford-Sobel game. This implication is that the final policy that receivers choose, in expectation, should equal the policy that they would have chosen had the senders sent no signal. That is, the receivers should rationally discount any bias in the signals, and the senders should not be able systematically to fool the receivers. However, contrary to the theory of the Crawford-Sobel game, in practice, all versions of the Cai-Wang experiment produced a policy bias. Further, the bias was systematic—it was always in the direction that the senders preferred. Elsewhere (Groseclose, 2011) I estimate the media lambda , a number between zero and one that expresses the degree to which a signal sender can fool a receiver. The results of the Cai-Wang experiment produce a media lambda of approximately.32. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
– Name: AbstractSuppliedCopyright
  Label:
  Group: Ab
  Data: <i>Copyright of Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.03.032
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      – Code: eng
        Text: English
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        PageCount: 12
        StartPage: 306
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Game theory
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Games
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Evidence
        Type: general
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      – TitleFull: Do humans rationally discount biased signals? Evidence from the Crawford-Sobel Game.
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              Text: Jun2021
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              Y: 2021
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