IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8309.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Loss Aversion in the Laboratory

Author

Listed:
  • Morrison, William G.

    (Wilfrid Laurier University)

  • Oxoby, Robert J.

    (University of Calgary)

Abstract

We report the results of a laboratory experiment testing for the existence of loss aversion in a standard risk aversion protocol (Holt and Laury, 2002). In our experiment, participants earn and retain money for a week before using it in an incentivized risk preference elicitation task. We find loss aversion, distinct from risk aversion, has a significant effect on behavior resulting in participants requiring higher compensation to bear risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Morrison, William G. & Oxoby, Robert J., 2014. "Loss Aversion in the Laboratory," IZA Discussion Papers 8309, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8309.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bosch-Domènech, Antoni & Silvestre, Joaquim, 2010. "Averting risk in the face of large losses: Bernoulli vs. Tversky and Kahneman," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 180-182, May.
    2. Todd L. Cherry & Peter Frykblom & Jason F. Shogren, 2002. "Hardnose the Dictator," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1218-1221, September.
    3. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2005. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects: New Data without Order Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 902-912, June.
    4. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    5. William G. Morrison & Robert J. Oxoby, 2013. "The endowment effect and intertemporal choice: a laboratory investigation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(2), pages 689-704, May.
    6. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    7. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE 2.0 - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Working Paper Series in Economics 10, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    8. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Daniel Kahneman & Jack L. Knetsch & Richard H. Thaler, 1991. "Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 193-206, Winter.
    10. Glenn Harrison, 2007. "House money effects in public good experiments: Comment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(4), pages 429-437, December.
    11. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    12. Dimmock, Stephen G. & Kouwenberg, Roy, 2010. "Loss-aversion and household portfolio choice," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 441-459, June.
    13. Mosi Rosenboim & Tal Shavit, 2012. "Whose money is it anyway? Using prepaid incentives in experimental economics to create a natural environment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 145-157, March.
    14. McLeish, Kendra N. & Oxoby, Robert J., 2007. "Gender, Affect and Intertemporal Consistency: An Experimental Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 2663, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Ben Greiner, 2004. "The Online Recruitment System ORSEE - A Guide for the Organization of Experiments in Economics," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2003-10, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    16. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Loss Aversion in the Laboratory
      by Alessandro Cerboni in Knowledge Team on 2014-07-24 01:52:36

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. John Griffin, 2015. "Risk Premia and Knightian Uncertainty in an Experimental Market Featuring a Long-Lived Asset," Fordham Economics Discussion Paper Series dp2015-01, Fordham University, Department of Economics.
    2. Laura Hueber & Rene Schwaiger, 2021. "Debiasing Through Experience Sampling: The Case of Myopic Loss Aversion," Working Papers 2021-01, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.

    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. Robert Oxoby & William G. Morrison, "undated". "Asset Integration, Risk Taking and Loss Aversion in the Laboratory," Working Papers 2019-04, Department of Economics, University of Calgary, revised 30 Jan 2019.
    2. William Morrison, Robert Oxoby, 2016. "Risk Taking, Intertemporal Choice, and Loss Aversion," LCERPA Working Papers 0096, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, revised 01 Jul 2016.
    3. William G. Morrison & Robert J. Oxoby, 2022. "Asset integration and risk‐taking in the laboratory," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 1460-1479, August.
    4. William G. Morrison & Robert J. Oxoby, 2013. "The endowment effect and intertemporal choice: a laboratory investigation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(2), pages 689-704, May.
    5. Hwang, In Do, 2021. "Prospect theory and insurance demand: Empirical evidence on the role of loss aversion," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    6. Miriam Krieger & Stefan Felder, 2013. "Can Decision Biases Improve Insurance Outcomes? An Experiment on Status Quo Bias in Health Insurance Choice," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, June.
    7. Bruttel, Lisa & Fischbacher, Urs, 2013. "Taking the initiative. What characterizes leaders?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 147-168.
    8. Astrid Gamba & Elena Manzoni & Luca Stanca, 2017. "Social comparison and risk taking behavior," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(2), pages 221-248, February.
    9. Mamadou Gueye & Nicolas Quérou & Raphaël Soubeyran, 2018. "Does equity induce inefficiency? An experiment on coordination," Working Papers hal-02790603, HAL.
    10. Alexia Gaudeul, 2013. "Social preferences under uncertainty," Jena Economics Research Papers 2013-024, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    11. Julius Pahlke & Sebastian Strasser & Ferdinand Vieider, 2015. "Responsibility effects in decision making under risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 125-146, October.
    12. Vossler, Christian A. & McKee, Michael & Bruner, David M., 2021. "Behavioral effects of tax withholding on tax compliance: Implications for information initiatives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 301-319.
    13. Astrid Gamba & Luca Stanca, 2023. "Mis-judging merit: the effects of adjudication errors in contests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(3), pages 550-587, July.
    14. Hidalgo-Hidalgo, Marisa & Jiménez, Natalia & López-Pintado, Dunia, 2021. "Social influence and position effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 113-131.
    15. Koellinger, Ph.D. & Treffers, T., 2012. "Joy leads to Overconfidence, and a Simple Remedy," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2012-001-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    16. David Bruner, 2009. "Changing the probability versus changing the reward," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(4), pages 367-385, December.
    17. Astrid Dannenberg & Thomas Riechmann & Bodo Sturm & Carsten Vogt, 2012. "Inequality aversion and the house money effect," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(3), pages 460-484, September.
    18. Booij, Adam S. & van de Kuilen, Gijs, 2009. "A parameter-free analysis of the utility of money for the general population under prospect theory," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 651-666, August.
    19. Paetzel, Fabian & Sausgruber, Rupert & Traub, Stefan, 2014. "Social preferences and voting on reform: An experimental study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 36-55.
    20. Lisa Bruttel, 2013. "Is there an exclusionary effect of retroactive price reduction schemes?," TWI Research Paper Series 84, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    risk aversion; loss aversion; experiments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp8309. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.