Group decision making and social learning

Abstract

Social learning or learning from actions of others is a key focus of microeconomics; it studies how individuals aggregate information in social networks. Following the seminal work of Aumann, a large literature studies the strategic interaction of agents in a social network, where they receive private information and act based upon that information while also observing the actions of each other. These observations are in turn informative about other agents' private signals; information that can be then used in making future decisions. By the same token, agents engage in group discussions to benefit from private information of others and come up with better decisions that aggregate every body's information as efficiently as possible.