Daniel Hauser, Aalto University

“Social Learning with Endogenous Order of Moves”

Abstract: We extend the canonical social learning model to allow for free timing of actions. A group of agents, each endowed with some private information, are trying to learn some unknown state of the world by observing the actions taken by other agents. Agents make a single irreversible decision but, unlike in the canonical model, they can choose to wait in order to observe what decisions others make. Previous literature has understated the role of this endogenous timing in facilitating information aggregation; we demonstrate that in the most informative symmetric equilibrium information fully aggregates as the number of players becomes large. In this limit, we are also able to obtain closed form characterizations for rates of learning, rates of exit and equilibrium welfare.