Double overreaction in beauty contests with information acquisition: Theory and experiment *

Central banks' disclosures, such as forward guidance, have a weaker effect on the economy in reality than that predicted in theoretical models. In a beauty contest with information acquisition, we show that strategic complementarities give rise to a double overreaction to public disclosures by increasing agents' equilibrium level of attention, which, in turn, increases the weight assigned to the disclosures in agents' equilibrium action. A laboratory experiment provides evidence that the effect of strategic complementarities on participants' realised level of attention and realised action is qualitatively consistent with the theoretical predictions. (c) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.