Learning Dynamics and Support for Economic Reforms : Why Good News Can Be Bad

van Wijnbergen, Sweder ; Willems, Tim

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURE;    ANALOGY;    ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION;    BANKS;    BELIEFS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6973
RP-ID  :  WPS6973

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Support for economic reforms has oftenshown puzzling dynamics: many reforms that begansuccessfully lost public support. This paper shows thatlearning dynamics can rationalize this paradox because theprocess of revealing reform outcomes is an example ofsampling without replacement. This concept challenges theconventional wisdom that one should begin by revealingreform winners. It may also lead to situations in whichreforms that enjoy both ex ante and ex post majority supportwill still not come to completion. The framework can be usedto explain why gradual reforms worked well in China (wheresuccesses in Special Economic Zones facilitated furtherreform), whereas this was much less the case for LatinAmerican and Central and Eastern European countries.