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Review of Finance Vol. 23 No. 2 2019

Did You See What I Saw? Interpreting Others’ Forecasts When Their Information Is Unknown

Anthony M. Kwasnica1; Raisa Velthuis2; Jared Williams3

1 Smeal College of Business, Penn State University · 2 Villanova School of Business, Villanova University · 3 Muma College of Business, University of South Florida

Abstract

We conduct a series of forecasting experiments to examine how people update their beliefs upon observing others’ forecasts. Subjects exhibit “cursedness,” that is, a propensity to underestimate the link between others’ forecasts and others’ information, which causes subjects to underreact. The behavior of sophisticated subjects is not affected by the framing of information, but unsophisticated subjects switch from underreaction to overreaction when they are only provided qualitative (rather than quantitative) forecast information. Our results have important implications for the way that financial analysts aggregate information and the way that financial institutions present forecasts to their clients.

DOI
10.1093/rof/rfx052
Volume
23
Issue
2
Pages
325-361
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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