Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name:  Jonathan E. Alevy
Author-Name-First: Jonathan 
Author-Name-Last: Alevy
Author-Email:  jalevy@uaa.alaska.edu 
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of Alaska Anchorage 
Author-Name:  Michael K. Price
Author-Name-First: Michael
Author-Name-Last: Price
Author-Email:  mprice25@gsu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Georgia State University
Title:  Advice and Fictive Learning: The Pricing of Assets in the Laboratory 
Abstract: A burgeoning literature in the neurosciences suggests that individuals modify their behavior not only in 
response to their own experiences, but also from what they learn about the experiences of others engaged in similar 
tasks.  Importantly, these different forms of learning are associated with common neurological processes.  We explore 
whether others’ advice provides a fictive learning signal that substitutes for one’s own experience.  We examine this 
question in an environment where inexperienced traders frequently perform poorly – an experimental asset market.  
Prices in sessions with advice tend towards fundamentals mitigating the severity of price bubbles.  Further, advice 
allays behaviors shown to yield bubbles in prior studies.  Taken jointly, our data suggest that advice triggers fictive 
learning which helps agents avoid the “mistakes” made by naïve counterparts.  
Creation-date: 2012-12 
File-URL: http://www.econpapers.uaa.alaska.edu/RePEC/ala/wpaper/ALA201207.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Classification-JEL: C92, D83, G12
Keywords: asset pricing, laboratory experiments, advice
Number: 2012-07
Handle: RePEc:ala:wpaper:2012-07