IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v11y2019i3p34-67.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Experimental Comparison of Risky and Riskless Choice—Limitations of Prospect Theory and Expected Utility Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Hui-Kuan Chung
  • Paul Glimcher
  • Agnieszka Tymula

Abstract

Prospect theory, used descriptively for decisions under both risk and certainty, presumes concave utility over gains and convex utility over losses, a pattern widely seen in lottery tasks. Although such discontinuous gain-loss reference-dependence is also used to model riskless choices, only limited empirical evidence supports this use. In incentive-compatible experiments, we find that gain-loss reflection effects are not observed under riskless choice as predicted by prospect theory, even while in the same subjects gain-loss reflection effects are observed under risk. Our empirical results challenge the application of choice models across both risky and riskless domains.

Suggested Citation

  • Hui-Kuan Chung & Paul Glimcher & Agnieszka Tymula, 2019. "An Experimental Comparison of Risky and Riskless Choice—Limitations of Prospect Theory and Expected Utility Theory," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 34-67, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:11:y:2019:i:3:p:34-67
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170112
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=10249
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170112.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Johannes G. Jaspersen & Richard Peter & Marc A. Ragin, 2023. "Probability weighting and insurance demand in a unified framework," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 48(1), pages 63-109, March.
    2. Tymula, Agnieszka & Wang, Xueting, 2021. "Increased risk-taking, not loss tolerance, drives adolescents’ propensity to choose risky prospects more often under peer observation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 439-457.
    3. Johannes G. Jaspersen, 2022. "When full insurance may not be optimal: The case of restricted substitution," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 1249-1257, June.
    4. Guo, Julie & Tymula, Agnieszka, 2021. "Waterfall illusion in risky choice – exposure to outcome-irrelevant gambles affects subsequent valuation of risky gambles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    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:aejmic:v:11:y:2019:i:3:p:34-67. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.