This paper systematically analyzes and enriches the observational learning paradigm of Banerjee (1992) and Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch (1992). Our contributions fall into three categories. First, we develop what we consider to be the right analytic framework for informational herding...

This paper explores rational social learning in which everyone only sees unordered random samples from the action history. In this model, herds need not occur when the distant past can be sampled. If private signal strengths are unbounded and the past is not over-sampled -- not forever affected...

In the social learning model of Banerjee [1] and Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer and Welch [2] individuals take actions sequentially after observing the history of actions taken by the predecessors and an informative private signal. If the state of the world is changing stochastically over time during...

In the social learning model of Banerjee (1992) and Kikhchandani, Hirshleifer and Welch (1992), individuals take actions sequentially after observing the history of actions taken by the predecessors and an informative private signal. If the state of the world is changing stochastically over time...