Social Sciences Brown Bag Seminar

Abstract: We study underlying reasons for the failure of individuals to adhere to Bayes' rule and decompose this departure into three elements: (i) complexity of the task, (ii) information structure, and (iii) timing of information release. In a series of controlled experiments, we alter all three elements and quantify their magnitude. We address task complexity by introducing a novel notion driven by nonlinear calculations required for Bayesian updating. We experimentally explore our notion of complexity and find empirical support for it.

Joint work with Pellumb Reshidi.