Rational heuristics? Expectations and behaviors in evolving economies with heterogeneous interacting agents

"We analyze the individual and macroeconomic impacts of heterogeneous expectations and action rules within an agent-based model populated by heterogeneous, interacting firms. Agents have to cope with a complex evolving economy characterized by deep uncertainty resulting from technical change, i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dosi, Giovanni, Napoletano, Mauro, Roventini, Andrea, Stiglitz, Joseph E., Treibich, Tania
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Paris 2017
OFCE
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19395857124911130399-Rational-heuristics?-expectati.htm
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author Dosi, Giovanni
Napoletano, Mauro
Roventini, Andrea
Stiglitz, Joseph E.
Treibich, Tania
author_facet Dosi, Giovanni
Napoletano, Mauro
Roventini, Andrea
Stiglitz, Joseph E.
Treibich, Tania
collection Library items
description "We analyze the individual and macroeconomic impacts of heterogeneous expectations and action rules within an agent-based model populated by heterogeneous, interacting firms. Agents have to cope with a complex evolving economy characterized by deep uncertainty resulting from technical change, imperfect information and coordination hurdles. In these circumstances, we find that neither individual nor macroeconomic dynamics improve when agents replace myopic expectations with less naïve learning rules. In fact, more sophisticated, e.g. recursive least squares (RLS) expectations produce less accurate individual forecasts and also considerably worsen the performance of the economy. Finally, we experiment with agents that adjust simply to technological shocks, and we show that individual and aggregate performances dramatically degrade. Our results suggest that fast and frugal robust heuristics are not a second-best option: rather they are “rational” in macroeconomic environments with heterogeneous, interacting agents and changing “fundamentals”."
format TEXT
id 19395857124911130399_8d4c1b5b09c9487880922ff6ca6e457b
institution ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
is_hierarchy_id 19395857124911130399_8d4c1b5b09c9487880922ff6ca6e457b
is_hierarchy_title Rational heuristics? Expectations and behaviors in evolving economies with heterogeneous interacting agents
language English
physical 43 p.
Digital
publishDate 2017
publisher Paris
OFCE
spellingShingle Dosi, Giovanni
Napoletano, Mauro
Roventini, Andrea
Stiglitz, Joseph E.
Treibich, Tania
macroeconomics
technological change
methodology
Rational heuristics? Expectations and behaviors in evolving economies with heterogeneous interacting agents
thumbnail https://www.labourline.org/Image_prev.jpg?Archive=131290295947
title Rational heuristics? Expectations and behaviors in evolving economies with heterogeneous interacting agents
topic macroeconomics
technological change
methodology
url https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19395857124911130399-Rational-heuristics?-expectati.htm