TY - RPRT AU - Huffman, David B. AU - Raymond, Collin AU - Shvets, Julia TI - Persistent Overconfidence and Biased Memory: Evidence from Managers PY - 2023/Jul/ PB - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) CY - Bonn T2 - IZA Discussion Paper IS - 16283 UR - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp16283 AB - A long-standing puzzle is how overconfidence can persist in settings characterized by repeated feedback. This paper studies managers who participate repeatedly in a high-powered tournament incentive system, learning relative performance each time. Using reduced form and structural methods we find that: (i) managers make overconfident predictions about future performance; (ii) managers have overly-positive memories of past performance; (iii) the two phenomena are linked at an individual level. Our results are consistent with models of motivated beliefs in which individuals are motivated to distort memories of feedback and preserve unrealistic expectations. KW - tournament KW - memory KW - overconfidence KW - motivated beliefs ER -