This paper argues that developing economies may face a trade-off between specializaing according to existing comparative advantage (in low-technology goods), and entering sectors in which they currently lack a comparative advantage, but may acquire such an advantage in the future as a result of...

We explore the constrained efficient observational learning model - as when individuals care about successors, or are so induced by an informationlly-constrained social planner. We find that when the herding externality is correctly internalized in this fashion, incorrect herds still obtain. To...

This paper systematically analyzes and enriches the observational learning paradigm of Banerjee (1992) and Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch (1992).

Herding arises when an agent's private informationis swamped by public information in what Jackson and Kalai (1997) call a recurring game. The agent will fail to reveal his own information and will follow the actions of his predecessor and, as a result, useful information is lost, which might...

This paper examines experimental evidence relating to herd behaviour in situations when subjects can learn from each other, and can delay their decision. Subject acted rationally, gaining from observational learning, despite penalties for delay. Cascades were ubiquitous and reverse-cascades...