Data and Code for: Belief Elicitation and Behavioral Incentive Compatibility

Subjective beliefs are crucial for economic inference, yet behavior can challenge the elicitation. We propose that belief elicitation should be incentive compatible not only theoretically but also in a de facto behavioral sense. To demonstrate, we show that the binarized scoring rule, a state-of-the-art elicitation, violates two weak conditions for behavioral incentive compatibility: (i) within the elicitation, information on the incentives increases deviations from truthful reporting; and (ii) in a pure choice over the set of incentives, most deviate from the theorized maximizer. Moreover, we document that deviations are systematic and center-biased, and that the elicited beliefs substantially distort inference.<br>

主观信念对于经济推理至关重要，但行为因素可能会对信念诱发构成挑战。我们提出，信念诱发不仅应在理论上具备激励相容性（incentive compatibility），还应在实际行为层面体现这一特性。为验证这一观点，我们发现二元化评分规则（binarized scoring rule）——一种最先进的信念诱发方法——违反了行为激励相容性的两个弱条件：（i）在诱发过程中，关于激励机制的信息会增加偏离真实报告的程度；（ii）在对激励方案集合的纯粹选择中，大多数人会偏离理论上的最大化策略。此外，我们发现这些偏离具有系统性和中心偏差特性，且诱发的信念会显著扭曲经济推理结果。<br>