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Testing Prospect Theories Using Probability Tradeoff Consistency

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Author Info
George Wu ()
Jiao Zhang ()
Mohammed Abdellaoui ()
Abstract

The two versions of prospect theory, original prospect theory (OPT; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) and cumulative prospect theory (CPT; Tversky and Kahneman, 1992), use different composition rules to combine the value function and the probability weighting function and hence value gambles with two or more non-zero outcomes differently. Previous tests of OPT and CPT have yielded mixed results, with some investigations supporting OPT and some supporting CPT. We extend the probability tradeoff consistency axiom used in Abdellaoui (2002) for CPT to OPT, and develop a critical test of the two prospect theories based on their respective probability tradeoff consistency conditions. An empirical investigation of the critical test shows that choices are consistent with OPT, but not CPT, for gambles that do not involve a certainty effect, and consistent with both CPT and OPT for gambles that do involve a certainty effect, provided that an editing operation is invoked for OPT. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

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Article provided by Springer in its journal Journal of Risk and Uncertainty.

Volume (Year): 30 (2005)
Issue (Month): 2 (January)
Pages: 107-131
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Handle: RePEc:kap:jrisku:v:30:y:2005:i:2:p:107-131

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Keywords: decision under risk; prospect theory; probability weighting function; tradeoff consistency;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Birnbaum, Michael H. & McIntosh, William Ross, 1996. "Violations of Branch Independence in Choices between Gambles," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 91-110, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Drazen Prelec, 1998. "The Probability Weighting Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 497-528, May.
  3. Starmer, Chris & Sugden, Robert, 1993. " Testing for Juxtaposition and Event-Splitting Effects," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 235-54, June.
  4. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. " Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
  5. Wu, George, 1994. "An Empirical Test of Ordinal Independence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 39-60, July.
  6. Wu, George & Gonzalez, Richard, 1998. "Common Consequence Conditions in Decision Making under Risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 115-39, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Conlisk, John, 1989. "Three Variants on the Allais Example," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 392-407, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-87, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Kahneman, Daniel & Tversky, Amos, 1979. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(2), pages 263-91, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Wakker, Peter & Tversky, Amos, 1993. " An Axiomatization of Cumulative Prospect Theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 147-75, October.
  12. Birnbaum, Michael H. & Chavez, Alfredo, 1997. "Tests of Theories of Decision Making: Violations of Branch Independence and Distribution Independence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 161-194, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Mohammed Abdellaoui, 2002. "A Genuine Rank-Dependent Generalization of the Von Neumann-Morgenstern Expected Utility Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 717-736, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Camerer, Colin F & Ho, Teck-Hua, 1994. "Violations of the Betweenness Axiom and Nonlinearity in Probability," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 167-96, March.
  15. Shapira, Zur & Venezia, Itzhak, 1992. "Size and frequency of prizes as determinants of the demand for lotteries," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 307-318, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Marc Rieger & Mei Wang, 2008. "Prospect theory for continuous distributions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 83-102, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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