Learning Through Imitation: An Experiment

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Agranov, Marina, Lopez-Moctezuma, Gabriel, Strack, Philipp, Tamuz, Omer
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909054880710656
author Agranov, Marina
Lopez-Moctezuma, Gabriel
Strack, Philipp
Tamuz, Omer
author_facet Agranov, Marina
Lopez-Moctezuma, Gabriel
Strack, Philipp
Tamuz, Omer
contents We compare how well agents aggregate information in two repeated social learning environments. In the first setting agents have access to a public data set. In the second they have access to the same data, and also to the past actions of others. Despite the fact that actions contain no additional payoff-relevant information, and despite potential herd behavior, free riding and information overload issues, observing and imitating the actions of others leads agents to take the optimal action more often in the second setting. We also investigate the effect of group size, as well as a setting in which agents observe private data and others' actions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_17662
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning Through Imitation: An Experiment
Agranov, Marina
Lopez-Moctezuma, Gabriel
Strack, Philipp
Tamuz, Omer
Theoretical Economics
We compare how well agents aggregate information in two repeated social learning environments. In the first setting agents have access to a public data set. In the second they have access to the same data, and also to the past actions of others. Despite the fact that actions contain no additional payoff-relevant information, and despite potential herd behavior, free riding and information overload issues, observing and imitating the actions of others leads agents to take the optimal action more often in the second setting. We also investigate the effect of group size, as well as a setting in which agents observe private data and others' actions.
title Learning Through Imitation: An Experiment
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.17662