Working Paper #2016-028
Mimetic behaviour and institutional persistence: A two-armed bandit experiment
Institutions are the result of many individual decisions. Understanding
how agents filter available information concerning the behaviour of
others is therefore crucial. In this paper we investigate whether and
how agents' self-efficacy beliefs affect mimetic behaviour and thus,
implicitly the evolution of institutions. We propose an experimental
task, which is a modified version of the two-armed bandit with finite
time horizon. In the first treatment, we study in detail individual
learning. In the second treatment, we measure how individuals use the
information they gather while observing a randomly selected group
leader. We find a negative relation between self-efficacy beliefs and
the propensity to emulate a peer. This might ultimately affect the
likelihood of institutional change.
- Keywords
-
- Emulation
- mimicry
- laboratory experiment
- self-efficacy
- institutional change
- JEL codes
-
- B52
- C13
- C91
- D02
- D03
- D83
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Innocenti, S., & Cowan, R. (2016). Mimetic behaviour and institutional persistence: A two-armed bandit experiment (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2016-028). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=6037