Adaptive versus eductive learning: Theory and evidence

Abstract

Adaptive and eductive learning are two widely used ways of modeling the process by which agents learn a rational expectation equilibrium (REE). In this paper we report an experiment where we exploit differences in the conditions under which adaptive and eductive learning converge to REE so as to investigate which approach provides the better description of the learning behavior of human subjects. Our results suggest that the path by which the system converges appears to be a mixture of both adaptive and eductive learning model predictions.