Optimal Design for Social Learning

We study the design of a recommender system for organizing social learning on a product. The optimal design trades off fully transparent social learning to improve incentives for early experimentation, by selectively over-recommending a product in the early phase of the product release. Under the optimal scheme, experimentation occurs faster than under full transparency but slower than under the first-best opti- mum, and the rate of experimentation increases over an initial phase and lasts until the posterior becomes sufficiently bad in which case the recommendation stops along with experimentation on the product. Fully transparent recommendation may become optimal if the (socially-benevolent) designer does not observe the agents’ costs or the agents choose the timing of receiving a recommendation.

发言人详细信息

Johannes Hörner is Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, and Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University. He has received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000, and has held previous positions at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (2000–2008).

His academic interests range from game theory to the theory of industrial organization. His research has focused on repeated games, dynamic games, and auctions.

日期：
演讲者：
Johannes Horner
所属机构：
Yale University