Working Paper: NBER ID: w29412
Authors: Stephanie C. De Mel; Kaivan Munshi; Soenje Reiche; Hamid Sabourian
Abstract: There are many economic environments in which an object is offered sequentially to prospective buyers. It is often observed that once the object for sale is turned down by one or more agents, those that follow do the same. One explanation that has been proposed for this phenomenon is that agents making choices further down the line rationally ignore their own assessment of the object's quality and herd behind their predecessors. Our research adds a new dimension to the canonical herding model by allowing agents to differ in their ability to assess the quality of the offered object. We develop novel tests of herding based on this ability heterogeneity and also examine its efficiency consequences, applied to organ transplantation in the U.K. We find that herding is common but that the information lost due to herding does not substantially increase false discards of good organs or false acceptances of bad organs. Our counter-factual analysis indicates that this is due (in part) to the high degree of heterogeneity in ability across transplant centers. In other settings, such as the U.S., where organ transplantation is organized very differently and the ability distribution will not be the same, the inefficiencies due to herding might well be substantial.
Keywords: Herding; Organ Transplantation; Ability Heterogeneity; Decision-Making
JEL Codes: D83
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| herding (C92) | rejection rates of organs by transplant centers (L33) |
| ability heterogeneity among centers (D29) | likelihood of herding (C92) |
| herding (C92) | loss of information (D89) |
| rejections by earlier centers (J68) | rejections by subsequent centers (Y40) |
| ability heterogeneity among centers (D29) | herding effect (C92) |
| herding (C92) | false discards of organs (Y40) |
| herding (C92) | false acceptances of organs (I12) |
| ability heterogeneity across centers (D29) | efficiency losses due to herding (C92) |