This award is made under the Dissertation Improvement program. Experimental economics has gained prominence as a means of testing behavioral assumptions that underlie much of economic theory. A fundamental and frequently used assumption in game theory and decision theory is the assertion that individuals use Bayes' rule to process new information about uncertain events. This research investigates the extent to which this assumption is valid in the particular context of information cascades, where individuals ignore their own private information and follow public information instead. The results will help clarify the phenomenon of information cascades and assumptions about decision making behavior.
