RATIONAL HERDS
Economic Models of Social Learning
Penguins jumping off a cliff, economic forecasters predicting a recovery in the
business cycle, financial advisors for the stock market speculating against a currency,
and farmers using new seeds in India are all practicing social learning. Such
learning from the behavior of others can lead to herds, crashes, and booms. These
issues have become, over the last ten years, an exciting field of research in theoretical
and applied economics, finance, and other social sciences. This book provides both
an informal introduction and in-depth insights into the most recent advances.
The properties of social learning depend on the context in which learning and
actions take place. Each chapter is devoted to a separate issue: Individuals learn from
the observations of actions, fromthe outcomes of these actions, and fromwhat others
say. They may delay or make an immediate decision; they may compete against
others or gain from cooperation; they make decisions about capital investment,
crop choices, and financial investments. The book highlights the similarities and the
differences between the various cases. A recurrent theme is that society may learn
more if individuals are less than perfectly rational in their interpretation of others’
behavior.
Christophe Chamley is Professor of Economics at Boston University and a Director
of Studies at the Ecole desHautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.He has also held
teaching or visiting positions at Yale University, the Hoover Institution, the World
Bank, Universidad Carlos III (Madrid), the Universit´e Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg),
and MIT. Professor Chamley’s research has appeared in the leading journals in
economics, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of
Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Review of Economic
Studies. He was named a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1995. His research
interests continue to focus on the economics of information, theoretical macroeconomics,
monetary economics, public economics, and public economics history.
Professor Chamley received his doctorate from Harvard University.
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