Pragmatic Beliefs and Overconfidence

Abstract

Several studies indicate that humans are overconfident about their own (relative) abilities. The paper proposes a notion of pragmatic beliefs, and shows through an example that this concept can shed light on why overconfidence emerges. Through the example, we also shed light on the idea that that 'bounded rationality' may arise endogenously in a game - without assuming complexity costs.

JEL Classification: C7, C9, D8, J0