American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Belief Elicitation and Behavioral Incentive Compatibility
American Economic Review
vol. 112,
no. 9, September 2022
(pp. 2851–83)
Abstract
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.Citation
Danz, David, Lise Vesterlund, and Alistair J. Wilson. 2022. "Belief Elicitation and Behavioral Incentive Compatibility." American Economic Review, 112 (9): 2851–83. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20201248Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making