讲座题目：Information Acquisition with Uncertain Signal Structure（信息获取与不确定的信号结构）

主讲人：闵炜程 上海交通大学安泰经管学院

讲座时间：2024年6月6日14:00

讲座地点：学院358

讲座内容摘要：

An agent repeatedly chooses between a familiar source and an unfamiliar source to learn a persistent fundamental. When the signal structure of the unfamiliar source is also uncertain, the learning problem is two-dimensional. Moreover, the two dimensions become naturally correlated as the agent chooses the unfamiliar source over time. This paper makes a novel observation that it is the correlation, instead of the marginal belief over the uncertain signal structure, that determines the informativeness of the unfamiliar source. Based on this observation, this paper characterizes the agent's asymptotic choice of source. Under appropriate conditions, the agent settles on the familiar source with probability one for any joint prior, even if the true signal structure of the unfamiliar source Blackwell dominates that of the familiar source. As an implication, this result explains the well-documented preference towards familiarity from a rational perspective.

一个决策者在熟悉的来源和不熟悉的来源之间反复选择，以学习和了解一个持久的基本因素。当不熟悉来源的信号结构也不确定时，学习问题变成了二维的。此外，随着决策者不断选择不熟悉的来源，这两个维度变得相互关联。本文提出了一个新颖的观点，即决定不熟悉来源信息量的是这种相关性，而不是对不确定信号结构的边际信念。基于这一观点，本文刻画了决策者的渐近来源选择。在适当条件下，即使不熟悉来源的真实信号结构在Blackwell意义上占优于熟悉来源，决策者仍会以概率一选择熟悉来源。这一结果从理性角度解释了人们偏向选择熟悉信息来源的现象。

主讲人个人信息：

Weicheng Min received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University as an Assistant Professor. Prior to this, he received a Bachelor’s degree from Fudan University and a Master’s degree from London School of Economics and Political Science. He is interested in microeconomic theory and behavioral economics, with special emphasis on information economics and bounded rationality.

闵炜程于2022年获得耶鲁大学经济学博士学位，并加入上海交通大学担任助理教授。在此之前，他获得了复旦大学的学士学位和伦敦政治经济学院的硕士学位。研究兴趣包括微观经济理论和行为经济学，其中特别关注信息经济学和有限理性的相关问题。