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The lure of illusory luck: How much are people willing to pay for random shocks

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  • Yuan, Jia
  • Sun, Guang-Zhen
  • Siu, Ricardo

Abstract

We investigate whether people are influenced to make investment decisions based on random shock signals and to what extent they do so by exploiting a unique data set from a popular Chinese lottery game with over one million observations. We first present evidence that people, as individual investors in the field, not only systematically commit the hot-hand fallacy in chasing the winners who happen to pick the lucky numbers in the latest round of the lottery game, but are also willing to bear a cost in doing so although winning the lottery is merely a random shock. We then propose a simple model to account for the observed market behaviors. We further estimate the lottery players’ willingness to pay for the random shock signals, and find that the market value of such illusion is significantly high.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuan, Jia & Sun, Guang-Zhen & Siu, Ricardo, 2014. "The lure of illusory luck: How much are people willing to pay for random shocks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 269-280.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:106:y:2014:i:c:p:269-280
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.06.003
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    Cited by:

    1. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2018. "Surprised by the Hot Hand Fallacy? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(6), pages 2019-2047, November.
    2. Silvia Bou & Jordi Brandts & Magda Cayón & Pablo Guillén, 2016. "The price of luck: paying for the hot hand of others," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(1), pages 60-72, May.
    3. Bao, Te & Corgnet, Brice & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Riyanto, Yohanes E. & Zhu, Jiahua, 2023. "Predicting the unpredictable: New experimental evidence on forecasting random walks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2019. "Surprised by the Hot Hand Fallacy? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," Papers 1902.01265, arXiv.org.
    5. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "Is it a Fallacy to Believe in the Hot Hand in the NBA Three-Point Contest?," OSF Preprints dmksp, Center for Open Science.
    6. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "A Cold Shower for the Hot Hand Fallacy: Robust Evidence that Belief in the Hot Hand is Justified," OSF Preprints pj79r, Center for Open Science.
    7. Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2018. "A Bridge from Monty Hall to the Hot Hand: Restricted Choice, Selection Bias, and Empirical Practice," OSF Preprints dmgtp, Center for Open Science.
    8. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2015. "Surprised by the Gambler’s and Hot Hand Fallacies? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," Working Papers 552, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    9. Anufriev, Mikhail & Bao, Te & Sutan, Angela & Tuinstra, Jan, 2019. "Fee structure and mutual fund choice: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 449-474.
    10. Miller, Joshua B. & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2021. "Is it a fallacy to believe in the hot hand in the NBA three-point contest?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hothand fallacy; Market value of random shocks; Alphabetic preference; Online peer-to-peer gambling; Mutual funds;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

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