Collaborative Research: Social versus individual learning in life-cycle consumption and saving

合作研究：生命周期消费和储蓄中的社会学习与个人学习

• 批准号: 0350565
• 负责人: Nathaniel Wilcox
• 金额: $ 12.56万
• 依托单位: University of Houston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-02-15 至 2007-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0350565&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Social; versus; individual

This project experimentally examines whether people can learn how to perform these tasks better through observation of, and/or advice from, other people. The hypotheses under scrutiny are motivated by a large literature in sociological and psychological disciplines concerning observational, social and cooperative learning on the one hand, and group processes and performance on the other. The tasks studied are drawn from the contemporary economic literature on consumption and saving. The purpose of the experiments is to determine: (a) Whether social learning can occur in these important economic settings; (b) what factors govern the occurrence and/or strength of this learning; and (c) how such learning compares to individual learning from individual repetition.Intellectual Merit: The life-cycle consumption and saving task (hereafter LCCS task) plays a central role in macroeconomic theory, and is also an intense object of study in several microeconomic areas. Experimental examinations suggest that people do not perform LCCS tasks optimally. And while it is possible that some individual learning and adaptation could take place with individual repetition of LCCS tasks in an experimental setting, this is of questionable relevance to LCCS tasks in the external world (the world outside the lab) since, by definition, they are only encountered once in their entirety over any agent's lifetime in the external world. However, people may learn from observation of (or advice from) other people who have performed (or are performing) similar tasks. That is, there is a possibility of social learning about LCCS tasks, even though individual learning through repetition is impossible. Similar remarks apply to many other important individual decision making tasks that are, by their nature, only encountered once in a lifetime. But few are as important, ubiquitous or complex as the LCCS task.Broader Impact: Experimentalists commonly build repetition of tasks into experimental designs. This is a questionable procedure whenever: (a) The decision problem under analysis is a unique, once-over-a-lifetime task in the external world, such as the LCCS task; and (b) the experimenter wishes her results to be externally valid. However, if social learning occurs for such tasks, and social learning compares well with individual learning, then the procedure gains in respectability since it may be regarded as a "laboratory substitute" for the social learning that would take place in naturally occurring settings. So this research will add useful knowledge to the methodological base of experimental economics.

该项目通过实验检验人们是否可以通过观察其他人和/或其他人的建议来学习如何更好地执行这些任务。受到审查的假设源于社会学和心理学学科的大量文献，一方面涉及观察、社会和合作学习，另一方面涉及群体过程和表现。研究的任务取自当代有关消费和储蓄的经济文献。实验的目的是确定： (a) 社会学习是否可以在这些重要的经济环境中发生； (b) 哪些因素决定这种学习的发生和/或强度；智力优点：生命周期消费和储蓄任务（以下简称 LCCS 任务）在宏观经济理论中发挥着核心作用，也是多个微观经济领域的热门研究对象。 实验检查表明，人们并没有以最佳方式执行 LCCS 任务。虽然在实验环境中个体重复 LCCS 任务时可能会发生一些个体学习和适应，但这与外部世界（实验室外的世界）中的 LCCS 任务的相关性值得怀疑，因为根据定义，它们在任何智能体在外部世界的生命周期中只会遇到一次。然而，人们可以从已经执行（或正在执行）类似任务的其他人的观察（或建议）中学习。也就是说，尽管通过重复进行个人学习是不可能的，但关于 LCCS 任务的社会学习是有可能的。类似的言论也适用于许多其他重要的个人决策任务，这些任务本质上一生中只会遇到一次。但很少有像 LCCS 任务那样重要、普遍或复杂的任务。 更广泛的影响：实验主义者通常将重复的任务构建到实验设计中。在以下情况下，这是一个有问题的程序： (a) 所分析的决策问题是外部世界中独特的、一生一次的任务，例如 LCCS 任务； (b) 实验者希望她的结果在外部是有效的。然而，如果社会学习针对此类任务进行，并且社会学习与个人学习相比较，那么该过程就会受到尊重，因为它可能被视为自然发生环境中发生的社会学习的“实验室替代品”。因此，这项研究将为实验经济学的方法论基础增添有用的知识。