Strategic factor markets: expectations, luck, and business strategy
Management Science
Timid choices and bold forecasts: a cognitive perspective on risk taking
Management Science
The Soul of a New Machine
Vicarious Learning, Undersampling of Failure, and the Myths of Management
Organization Science
Random Walks and Sustained Competitive Advantage
Management Science
Detecting Regime Shifts: The Causes of Under- and Overreaction
Management Science
Does Past Success Lead Analysts to Become Overconfident?
Management Science
Financial Slack, Strategy, and Competition in Movie Distribution
Organization Science
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Successfully predicting that something will become a big hit seems impressive. Managers and entrepreneurs who have made successful predictions and have invested money on this basis are promoted, become rich, and may end up on the cover of business magazines. In this paper, we show that an accurate prediction about such an extreme event, e.g., a big hit, may in fact be an indication of poor rather than good forecasting ability. We first demonstrate how this conclusion can be derived from a formal model of forecasting. We then illustrate that the basic result is consistent with data from two lab experiments as well as field data on professional forecasts from the Wall Street Journal Survey of Economic Forecasts.