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Belief Elicitation and Behavioral Incentive Compatibility

Danz, David and Vesterlund, Lise and Wilson, Alistair J (2022) Belief Elicitation and Behavioral Incentive Compatibility. American Economic Review. (In Press)

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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.


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Item Type: Article
Status: In Press
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Danz, Daviddanz@pitt.edudanz0000-0001-5474-445X
Vesterlund, Lisevester@pitt.eduvester0000-0002-3476-3183
Wilson, Alistair Jalistair@pitt.edualistair0000-0001-8118-2376
Date: February 2022
Date Type: Acceptance
Journal or Publication Title: American Economic Review
Schools and Programs: Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Economics
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Economics > Economics Working Papers
Refereed: Yes
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Article Type: Research Article
Date Deposited: 28 Feb 2022 19:14
Last Modified: 28 Feb 2022 19:14
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/42270

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