Measuring the Completeness of Economic Models

S-Tier
Journal: Journal of Political Economy
Year: 2022
Volume: 130
Issue: 4
Pages: 956 - 990

Authors (4)

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 4 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

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

Abstract

Economic models are evaluated by testing the correctness of their predictions. We suggest an additional measure, “completeness”: the fraction of the predictable variation in the data that the model captures. We calculate the completeness of prominent models in three problems from experimental economics: assigning certainty equivalents to lotteries, predicting initial play in games, and predicting human generation of random sequences. The completeness measure reveals new insights about these models, including how much room there is for improving their predictions.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/718371
Journal Field
General
Author Count
4
Added to Database
2026-01-25