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Probability and Combinatorics

Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - 3:00pm

Miklos Racz

Princeton

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4C8

 It is well known that sequential decision making may lead to information cascades. If the individuals are choosing between a right and a wrong state, and the initial actions are wrong, then the whole cascade will be wrong. We show that if agents occasionally disregard the actions of others and base their action only on their private information, then wrong cascades can be avoided. Moreover, we obtain the optimal asymptotic rate at which the error probability at time t can go to zero. This is joint work with Yuval Peres, Allan Sly, and Izabella Stuhl.