IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/467.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An experimental test of loss aversion and scale compatibility

Author

Listed:
  • Han Bleichrodt
  • José Luis Pinto

Abstract

This paper studies two important reasons why people violate procedure invariance, loss aversion and scale compatibility. The paper extends previous research on loss aversion and scale compatibility by studying loss aversion and scale compatibility simultaneously, by looking at a new decision domain, medical decision analysis, and by examining the effect of loss aversion and scale compatibility on "well-contemplated preferences." We find significant evidence both of loss aversion and scale compatibility. However, the sizes of the biases due to loss aversion and scale compatibility vary over trade-offs and most participants do not behave consistently according to loss aversion or scale compatibility. In particular, the effect of loss aversion in medical trade-offs decreases with duration. These findings are encouraging for utility measurement and prescriptive decision analysis. There appear to exist decision contexts in which the effects of loss aversion and scale compatibility can be minimized and utilities can be measured that do not suffer from these distorting factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Han Bleichrodt & José Luis Pinto, 2000. "An experimental test of loss aversion and scale compatibility," Economics Working Papers 467, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:467
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/467.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McDaniels, Timothy L, 1992. "Reference Points, Loss Aversion, and Contingent Values for Auto Safety," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 187-200, May.
    2. Shalev, Jonathan, 1997. "Loss aversion in a multi-period model," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 203-226, June.
    3. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    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. Ian Bateman & Alistair Munro & Bruce Rhodes & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 1997. "A Test of the Theory of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 479-505.
    6. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    7. Ortona, Guido & Scacciati, Francesco, 1992. "New experiments on the endowment effect : Journal of economic psychology 13 (1992) 277-296," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 761-761, December.
    8. Payne, John W & Bettman, James R & Schkade, David A, 1999. "Measuring Constructed Preferences: Towards a Building Code," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 243-270, December.
    9. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    10. Peter Wakker & Anne Stiggelbout, 1995. "Explaining Distortions in Utility Elicitation through the Rank-dependent Model for Risky Choices," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 15(2), pages 180-186, June.
    11. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Philippe Delquié, 1993. "Inconsistent Trade-Offs Between Attributes: New Evidence in Preference Assessment Biases," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(11), pages 1382-1395, November.
    14. Beattie, Jane & Loomes, Graham, 1997. "The Impact of Incentives upon Risky Choice Experiments," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 155-168, March.
    15. Jones-Lee, Michael W & Loomes, Graham & Philips, P R, 1995. "Valuing the Prevention of Non-fatal Road Injuries: Contingent Valuation vs. Standard Gambles," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(4), pages 676-695, October.
    16. George Wu & Richard Gonzalez, 1996. "Curvature of the Probability Weighting Function," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(12), pages 1676-1690, December.
    17. Drazen Prelec, 1998. "The Probability Weighting Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 497-528, May.
    18. Ortona, Guido & Scacciati, Francesco, 1992. "New experiments on the endowment effect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 277-296, June.
    19. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1986. "Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 251-278, October.
    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. Daniel K. N. Johnson & Tracy R. Gleason, 2009. "Who REALLY Wants to be a Millionaire? Gender Differences in Game Show Contestant Behavior Under Risk," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(2), pages 243-261, 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. Han Bleichrodt, 2002. "A new explanation for the difference between time trade‐off utilities and standard gamble utilities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(5), pages 447-456, July.
    2. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F., 2013. "In search of a preferred preference elicitation method: A test of the internal consistency of choice and matching tasks," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 126-140.
    3. 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.
    4. Peter Brooks & Horst Zank, 2005. "Loss Averse Behavior," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 301-325, December.
    5. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Vitalie Spinu, 2020. "Searching for the Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 93-112, January.
    6. 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.
    7. Mary Riddel, 2012. "Comparing risk preferences over financial and environmental lotteries," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 135-157, October.
    8. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Vitalie Spinu, 2020. "Searching for the Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 93-112, January.
    9. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto, 2000. "A Parameter-Free Elicitation of the Probability Weighting Function in Medical Decision Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(11), pages 1485-1496, November.
    10. Andreas Glöckner & Baiba Renerte & Ulrich Schmidt, 2020. "Violations of coalescing in parametric utility measurement," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(4), pages 471-501, November.
    11. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto & Peter P. Wakker, 2001. "Making Descriptive Use of Prospect Theory to Improve the Prescriptive Use of Expected Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(11), pages 1498-1514, November.
    12. 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.
    13. George Wu & Alex B. Markle, 2008. "An Empirical Test of Gain-Loss Separability in Prospect Theory," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(7), pages 1322-1335, July.
    14. 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).
    15. Oliver, Adam, 2003. "The internal consistency of the standard gamble: tests after adjusting for prospect theory," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 159, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    17. Campos-Vazquez, Raymundo M. & Cuilty, Emilio, 2014. "The role of emotions on risk aversion: A Prospect Theory experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-9.
    18. Tamás Csermely & Alexander Rabas, 2016. "How to reveal people’s preferences: Comparing time consistency and predictive power of multiple price list risk elicitation methods," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 107-136, December.
    19. Henry Stott, 2006. "Cumulative prospect theory's functional menagerie," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 101-130, March.
    20. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Maria Abellan-Perpiñan & Jose Luis Pinto-Prades & Ildefonso Mendez-Martinez, 2007. "Resolving Inconsistencies in Utility Measurement Under Risk: Tests of Generalizations of Expected Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 469-482, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Decision analysis; utility theory; loss aversion; scale compatibility; health;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    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:upf:upfgen:467. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    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.