IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v101y2011i2p1012-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Willingness to Pay--Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Reply

Author

Listed:
  • Charles R. Plott
  • Kathryn Zeiler

Abstract

Isoni, Loomes, and Sugden (2011) assert that Plott and Zeiler (2005) reported inaccurate results. Placing ILS's selective quotes into context demonstrates otherwise. Additionally, examining the data closely yields three conclusions. First, all mug data reject endowment effect theory. Second, lottery gaps are associated with unstable attitudes toward uncertainty, a finding consistent with PZ's (2005) lottery data description, explicit warnings about procedure limitations and the data supplement, which reports the lottery data and cautions. Third, lottery outcome beliefs are influenced by whether WTP or WTA is reported, suggesting that changing beliefs, as opposed to the shape of preferences, produce lottery gaps. (JEL C91)

Suggested Citation

  • Charles R. Plott & Kathryn Zeiler, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay--Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 1012-1028, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:2:p:1012-28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.2.1012
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/april2011/20100063_data.zip
    File Function: dataset accompanying article
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kahneman, Daniel & Tversky, Amos, 1979. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(2), pages 263-291, March.
    2. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1325-1348, December.
    3. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    4. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    5. Andrea Isoni & Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay—Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 991-1011, April.
    6. Sugden, Robert, 2003. "Reference-dependent subjective expected utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 172-191, August.
    7. Jack Knetsch & Fang-Fang Tang & Richard Thaler, 2001. "The Endowment Effect and Repeated Market Trials: Is the Vickrey Auction Demand Revealing?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(3), pages 257-269, December.
    8. Kovalchik, Stephanie & Camerer, Colin F. & Grether, David M. & Plott, Charles R. & Allman, John M., 2005. "Aging and decision making: a comparison between neurologically healthy elderly and young individuals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 79-94, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lunn,Pete & Lunn, Mary, 2014. "What Can I Get For It? The Relationship Between the Choice Equivalent, Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay," Papers WP479, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    2. Breffle, William S. & Eiswerth, Mark E. & Muralidharan, Daya & Thornton, Jeffrey, 2015. "Understanding how income influences willingness to pay for joint programs: A more equitable value measure for the less wealthy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 17-25.
    3. Kapeliushnikov, Rostislav, 2015. "Behavioral economics and the ‘new’ paternalism1," Russian Journal of Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 81-107.
    4. Alexander Brown & Gregory Cohen, 2015. "Does anonymity affect the willingness to accept and willingness to pay gap? A generalization of Plott and Zeiler," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 173-184, June.
    5. Mooreland, Jay, II, 2011. "The Irrational Investor’s Risk Profile," Master's Theses and Plan B Papers 107787, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    6. Bull, Charles & Courty, Pascal & Doyon, Maurice & Rondeau, Daniel, 2019. "Failure of the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak mechanism in inexperienced subjects: New tests of the game form misconception hypothesis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 235-253.
    7. Randolph Sloof & Ferdinand A. Siemens, 2017. "Illusion of control and the pursuit of authority," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(3), pages 556-573, September.
    8. Isabel Marcin & Andreas Nicklisch, 2014. "Testing the Endowment Effect for Default Rules," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_01, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    9. Ashworth, Laurence & Darke, Peter R. & McShane, Lindsay & Vu, Tiffany, 2019. "The rules of exchange: The role of an exchange surplus in producing the endowment effect," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 11-24.
    10. Marcin Isabel & Nicklisch Andreas, 2017. "Testing the Endowment Effect for Default Rules," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1-27, July.
    11. Frondel Manuel & Sommer Stephan, 2017. "Der Wert von Versorgungssicherheit mit Strom: Evidenz für deutsche Haushalte," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 66(3), pages 294-317, December.
    12. Smith, Alec, 2019. "Lagged beliefs and reference-dependent utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 331-340.
    13. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    14. Fehr, Dietmar & Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2015. "The willingness to pay–willingness to accept gap: A failed replication of Plott and Zeiler," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 120-128.
    15. Reinhard Uehleke & Bodo Sturm, 2017. "The Influence of Collective Action on the Demand for Voluntary Climate Change Mitigation in Hypothetical and Real Situations," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 429-454, July.
    16. Christina McGranaghan & Steven G. Otto, 2022. "Choice uncertainty and the endowment effect," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 83-104, August.
    17. Marcin, Isabel & Nicklisch, Andreas, 2014. "Testing the Endowment Effect for Default Rules," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 10, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    18. Jae-Do Song & Young-Hwan Ahn, 2019. "Cognitive Bias in Emissions Trading," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-13, March.
    19. Lorentziadis, Panos L., 2016. "Optimal bidding in auctions from a game theory perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 347-371.
    20. Kovach, Matthew, 2020. "Twisting the truth: foundations of wishful thinking," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(3), July.
    21. Brebner, Sarah & Sonnemans, Joep, 2018. "Does the elicitation method impact the WTA/WTP disparity?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 40-45.
    22. Frenkel, Sivan & Heller, Yuval & Teper, Roee, 2012. "Endowment as a blessing," MPRA Paper 39430, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 2012.
    23. Anmol Ratan, 2012. "Mistakes, Closure and Endowment Effect in Laboratory Experiments," Monash Economics Working Papers 22-12, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    24. Waldman, Kurt B. & Kerr, John M., 2015. "Is Food and Drug Administration policy governing artisan cheese consistent with consumers’ preferences?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 71-80.
    25. Swati Dutta & Jyoti Prasad Mukhopadhyay & Viswanath Pingali, 2016. "Endowment Effects in Bundles," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 4(1), pages 27-45, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.
    2. Gächter, Simon & Johnson, Eric J. & Herrmann, Andreas, 2007. "Individual-Level Loss Aversion in Riskless and Risky Choices," IZA Discussion Papers 2961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    4. Andrea Isoni & Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay—Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 991-1011, April.
    5. Kogler, Christoph & Kühberger, Anton & Gilhofer, Rainer, 2013. "Real and hypothetical endowment effects when exchanging lottery tickets: Is regret a better explanation than loss aversion?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 42-53.
    6. Smith, Alec, 2019. "Lagged beliefs and reference-dependent utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 331-340.
    7. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel Ballester, 2009. "A theory of reference-dependent behavior," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(3), pages 427-455, September.
    8. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    9. Oben K Bayrak & Bengt Kriström, 2016. "Is there a valuation gap? The case of interval valuations," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(1), pages 218-236.
    10. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    11. Anbarci, Nejat & Arin, K. Peren & Kuhlenkasper, Torben & Zenker, Christina, 2018. "Revisiting loss aversion: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 1-18.
    12. Maximilian Rüdisser & Raphael Flepp & Egon Franck, 2017. "Do casinos pay their customers to become risk-averse? Revising the house money effect in a field experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(3), pages 736-754, September.
    13. Roth, Gerrit, 2006. "Predicting the Gap between Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay," Munich Dissertations in Economics 4901, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    14. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Vitalie Spinu, 2020. "Searching for the Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 93-112, January.
    15. Andrea Isoni, 2011. "The willingness-to-accept/willingness-to-pay disparity in repeated markets: loss aversion or ‘bad-deal’ aversion?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 409-430, September.
    16. Per Engström & Katarina Nordblom & Henry Ohlsson & Annika Persson, 2015. "Tax Compliance and Loss Aversion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 132-164, November.
    17. Alex Markle & George Wu & Rebecca White & Aaron Sackett, 2018. "Goals as reference points in marathon running: A novel test of reference dependence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 19-50, February.
    18. M. Keith Chen & Venkat Lakshminarayanan & Laurie Santos, 2005. "The Evolution of Our Preferences: Evidence from Capuchin-Monkey Trading Behavior," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1524, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    19. Fabian Herweg & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2015. "Loss Aversion and Inefficient Renegotiation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 297-332.
    20. Teck H. Ho & Noah Lim & Colin Camerer, 2005. "Modeling the Psychology of Consumer and Firm Behavior with Behavioral Economics," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000476, UCLA Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:2:p:1012-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.