The Collective Wisdom of Beauty Contests

Martimort, David and Stole, Lars (2011): The Collective Wisdom of Beauty Contests.

Abstract

This note uses techniques developed for aggregate games to characterize the set of equilib- ria for a beauty contest or prediction game in which the experts’ preferences are quadratic, but with an otherwise unrestricted information structure for private signals and the state variable. We show that, on aggregate, the experts’ collective estimate of the unknown parameter to be estimated is unbiased for every equilibrium.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Aggregate games, beauty contests, prediction games
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology ; Computer Programs; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games

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