Prolonged Learning and Hasty Stopping: The Wald Problem with Ambiguity

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2024
Volume: 114
Issue: 2
Pages: 426-61

Authors (3)

Sarah Auster (not in RePEc) Yeon-Koo Che (not in RePEc) Konrad Mierendorff

Score contribution per author:

2.681 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This paper studies sequential information acquisition by an ambiguity-averse decision-maker (DM), who decides how long to collect information before taking an irreversible action. The agent optimizes against the worst-case belief and updates prior by prior. We show that the consideration of ambiguity gives rise to rich dynamics: compared to the Bayesian DM, the DM here tends to experiment excessively when facing modest uncertainty and, to counteract it, may stop experimenting prematurely when facing high uncertainty. In the latter case, the DM's stopping rule is nonmonotonic in beliefs and features randomized stopping.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:114:y:2024:i:2:p:426-61
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25