• Graduate program
  • Research
  • Summer School
  • Events
    • Summer School
      • Applied Public Policy Evaluation
      • Economics of Blockchain and Digital Currencies
      • Economics of Climate Change
      • From preference to choice: The Economic Theory of Decision-Making
      • Gender in Society
      • Business Data Science Summer School Program
    • Events Calendar
    • Events Archive
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • 16th Tinbergen Institute Annual Conference
    • Annual Tinbergen Institute Conference
  • News
  • Alumni
  • Magazine
Home | Events Archive | Wisdom and Polarization
Research Master Pre-Defense

Wisdom and Polarization


  • Series
    Research Master Defense
  • Speaker
    Saeed Badri
  • Location
    Online
  • Date and time

    August 31, 2021
    11:00 - 12:00

We study the impact of misinformation and polarization on wisdom loss by using the DeGroot model. To do that, we analyze stylized models and numerically solve the wisdom loss for smaller cases and by simulation for the larger and general networks. We find that with even an infinitesimal small fraction of bots, a jump in wisdom loss occurs. This means that as long as there are unsophisticated agents (agents who are linked to bots), we see the wisdom loss even for a low fraction of bots and a large number of sophisticated agents (agents who are not linked to bots). This insight sheds new light on the impact of bots on social network consensus models.