Forecasting Skills in Experimental Markets: Illusion or Reality?
研究个人特征(智力、操纵性、心智理论)如何影响实验资产市场中的预测准确性,发现智力在低错误定价时有效,操纵性在高错误定价时有效,且男性预测者表现优于女性。
There is an ongoing debate regarding the degree to which a forecaster’s ability to draw correct inferences from market signals is real or illusory. This paper attempts to shed light on the debate by examining how personal characteristics do or do not affect forecaster success. Specifically, we investigate the role of fluid intelligence, manipulativeness, and theory of mind on forecast accuracy in experimental asset markets. We find that intelligence improves forecaster performance when market mispricing is low, manipulativeness improves forecaster performance when mispricing is high, and the degree to which theory of mind skills matter depends on both the level of mispricing and how information is displayed. All three of these results are consistent with hypotheses derived from the previous literature. Additionally, we observe that male forecasters outperform female forecasters after controlling for intelligence, manipulativeness, and theory of mind skills as well as risk aversion. Interestingly, we do not find any evidence that forecaster performance improves with experience across markets or within markets. This paper was accepted by Axel Ockenfels, behavioral economics and decision analysis.