IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v103y2023ics2214804322001446.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparing risk elicitation in lotteries with visual or contextual aids

Author

Listed:
  • Estepa-Mohedano, Lorenzo
  • Espinosa, María Paz

Abstract

Eliciting risk preferences usually involves tasks that subjects may find complex, such as calculations of expected values and assessment of probabilities in multiple price lists (MPL). There is a serious concern that the decisions of the subjects may be driven by miscalculations or miscalibration of probabilities, rather than by their risk preferences. In this paper, we test whether introducing aids to the usual lottery choices would help to reduce the error rate and possibly change risk aversion elicitation. The experiment was run with subjects from a rural area in Honduras. We compare the risk elicitation results of a multiple price list and two different treatments, one with visual aids (graphical representation of probabilities) and the other with contextual aids (bills to represent rewards and a distribution of ten beans between the two rewards to represent a lottery). Our results indicate that risk attitudes elicitation was affected with contextual aids, reducing risk aversion. For the treatment with visual aids we observe no effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Estepa-Mohedano, Lorenzo & Espinosa, María Paz, 2023. "Comparing risk elicitation in lotteries with visual or contextual aids," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:103:y:2023:i:c:s2214804322001446
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2022.101974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804322001446
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2022.101974?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antoni Bosch-Domènech & Joaquim Silvestre, 2013. "Measuring risk aversion with lists: a new bias," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(4), pages 465-496, October.
    2. 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.
    3. Loomes, Graham & Moffatt, Peter G & Sugden, Robert, 2002. "A Microeconometric Test of Alternative Stochastic Theories of Risky Choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 103-130, March.
    4. Louis Lévy-Garboua & Hela Maafi & David Masclet & Antoine Terracol, 2012. "Risk aversion and framing effects," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 128-144, March.
    5. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Estepa-Mohedano, Lorenzo & Jorrat, Diego & Orozco, Victor & Rascón-Ramírez, Ericka, 2021. "To pay or not to pay: Measuring risk preferences in lab and field," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(5), pages 1290-1313, September.
    6. Hans P. Binswanger, 1980. "Attitudes Toward Risk: Experimental Measurement in Rural India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 62(3), pages 395-407.
    7. 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.
    8. Wiseman, David B. & Levin, Irwin P., 1996. "Comparing Risky Decision Making Under Conditions of Real and Hypothetical Consequences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 241-250, June.
    9. Alekseev, Aleksandr & Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri, 2017. "Experimental methods: When and why contextual instructions are important," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 48-59.
    10. Jens Rommel & Daniel Hermann & Malte Müller & Oliver Mußhoff, 2019. "Contextual Framing and Monetary Incentives in Field Experiments on Risk Preferences: Evidence from German Farmers," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(2), pages 408-425, June.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Norbert Hirschauer & Oliver Musshoff & Syster C. Maart-Noelck & Sven Gruener, 2014. "Eliciting risk attitudes -- how to avoid mean and variance bias in Holt-and-Laury lotteries," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 35-38, January.
    14. Ola Andersson & Håkan J. Holm & Jean-Robert Tyran & Erik Wengström, 2020. "Robust inference in risk elicitation tasks," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 195-209, December.
    15. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "On the Relationship between Cognitive Ability and Risk Preference," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 115-134, Spring.
    16. Jens Rommel & Daniel Hermann & Malte Müller & Oliver Mußhoff, 2017. "Comprehension in risk elicitation experiments," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(9), pages 627-634, May.
    17. Gegax, Douglas & Gerking, Shelby & Schulze, William, 1991. "Perceived Risk and the Marginal Value of Safety," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(4), pages 589-596, November.
    18. Glenn W. Harrison & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2008. "Risk Aversion in the Laboratory," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Risk Aversion in Experiments, pages 41-196, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    19. Andreas C. Drichoutis & Jayson L. Lusk, 2016. "What can multiple price lists really tell us about risk preferences?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 89-106, December.
    20. Nathalie Etchart-Vincent & Olivier l’Haridon, 2011. "Monetary incentives in the loss domain and behavior toward risk: An experimental comparison of three reward schemes including real losses," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 61-83, February.
    21. Matthew Taylor, 2013. "Bias and brains: Risk aversion and cognitive ability across real and hypothetical settings," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 299-320, June.
    22. Kuhberger, Anton & Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael & Perner, Josef, 2002. "Framing decisions: Hypothetical and real," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 1162-1175, November.
    23. Krupnick, Alan & Alberini, Anna & Cropper, Maureen & Simon, Nathalie & O'Brien, Bernie & Goeree, Ron & Heintzelman, Martin, 2002. "Age, Health and the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions: A Contingent Valuation Survey of Ontario Residents," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 161-186, March.
    24. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2008. "Forecasting Risk Attitudes: An Experimental Study Using Actual and Forecast Gamble Choices," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-01, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    25. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    26. Ola Andersson & Håkan J. Holm & Jean-Robert Tyran & Erik Wengström, 2016. "Risk Aversion Relates To Cognitive Ability: Preferences Or Noise?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(5), pages 1129-1154, October.
    27. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Imas, Alex, 2013. "Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 43-51.
    28. Chetan Dave & Catherine Eckel & Cathleen Johnson & Christian Rojas, 2010. "Eliciting risk preferences: When is simple better?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 219-243, December.
    29. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2009. "Learning from mistakes: What do inconsistent choices over risk tell us?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 143-158, April.
    30. Bellemare, Charles & Shearer, Bruce, 2010. "Sorting, incentives and risk preferences: Evidence from a field experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 345-348, September.
    31. Enrica Carbone & John D. Hey, 2018. "Which Error Story is Best?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Experiments in Economics Decision Making and Markets, chapter 16, pages 365-380, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    32. Charness, Gary & Viceisza, Angelino, 2016. "Three Risk-elicitation Methods in the Field - Evidence from Rural Senegal," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 3(2), pages 145-171, July.
    33. Meraner, Manuela & Musshoff, Oliver & Finger, Robert, 2018. "Using involvement to reduce inconsistencies in risk preference elicitation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 22-33.
    34. Amador-Hidalgo, Luis & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Espín, Antonio M. & García-Muñoz, Teresa & Hernández-Román, Ana, 2021. "Cognitive abilities and risk-taking: Errors, not preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    35. Gerking, Shelby & de Haan, Menno & Schulze, William, 1988. "The Marginal Value of Job Safety: A Contingent Valuation Study," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 185-199, June.
    36. Ruth Hill & Angelino Viceisza, 2012. "A field experiment on the impact of weather shocks and insurance on risky investment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(2), pages 341-371, June.
    37. Herranz-Zarzoso, Noemí & Sabater-Grande, Gerardo & Jaramillo-Gutiérrez, Ainhoa, 2020. "Framing and repetition effects on risky choices: A behavioural approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    38. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:5:p:1290-1313 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Estepa-Mohedano, Lorenzo & Espinosa, Maria Paz, 2021. "Comparing risk elicitation in lotteries with visual or contextual framing aids," MPRA Paper 108440, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:5:p:1290-1313 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Estepa-Mohedano, Lorenzo & Jorrat, Diego & Orozco, Victor & Rascón-Ramírez, Ericka, 2021. "To pay or not to pay: Measuring risk preferences in lab and field," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(5), pages 1290-1313, September.
    4. Holzmeister, Felix & Stefan, Matthias, 2019. "The Risk Elicitation Puzzle Revisited: Across-Methods (In)consistency?," OSF Preprints pj9u2, Center for Open Science.
    5. Felix Holzmeister & Matthias Stefan, 2019. "The risk elicitation puzzle revisited: Across-methods (in)consistency?," Working Papers 2019-19, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    6. Felix Holzmeister & Matthias Stefan, 2021. "The risk elicitation puzzle revisited: Across-methods (in)consistency?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 593-616, June.
    7. 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.
    8. Ihli, Hanna Julia & Chiputwa, Brian & Musshoff, Oliver, 2016. "Do Changing Probabilities or Payoffs in Lottery-Choice Experiments Affect Risk Preference Outcomes? Evidence from Rural Uganda," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 41(2), May.
    9. Meraner, Manuela & Musshoff, Oliver & Finger, Robert, 2018. "Using involvement to reduce inconsistencies in risk preference elicitation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 22-33.
    10. Bruns, Selina & Hermann, Daniel & Mußhoff, Oliver, 2022. "Investigating inconsistencies in complex lotteries: The role of cognitive skills of low-numeracy subjects," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    11. Luca Congiu, 2023. "Framing Effects in the Elicitation of Risk Aversion: An Experimental Study," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(1), pages 321-352, March.
    12. Anwesha Bandyopadhyay & Lutfunnahar Begum & Philip J. Grossman, 2021. "Gender differences in the stability of risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 169-201, October.
    13. Bauermeister, Golo-Friedrich & Mußhoff, Oliver, 2016. "Risk Attitude And Inconsistencies - Does The Choice Of Display Format And Risk Elicitation Method Influence The Outcomes?," 56th Annual Conference, Bonn, Germany, September 28-30, 2016 244764, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    14. Bauermeister, Golo & Musshoff, Oliver, 2016. "Risk Aversion and Inconsistencies - Does the Choice of Risk Elicitation Method and Display Format Influence the Outcomes?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235348, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Simone Cerroni, 2020. "Eliciting farmers’ subjective probabilities, risk, and uncertainty preferences using contextualized field experiments," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(5), pages 707-724, September.
    16. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    17. Segovia, Michelle & Palma, Marco & Lusk, Jayson L. & Drichoutis, Andreas, 2022. "Visual formats in risk preference elicitation: What catches the eye?," MPRA Paper 115572, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Giuseppe Attanasi & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Valentina Rotondi & Daria Vigani, 2018. "Lottery- and survey-based risk attitudes linked through a multichoice elicitation task," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(3), pages 341-372, May.
    19. Lönnqvist, Jan-Erik & Verkasalo, Markku & Walkowitz, Gari & Wichardt, Philipp C., 2015. "Measuring individual risk attitudes in the lab: Task or ask? An empirical comparison," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 254-266.
    20. Holden, Stein T. & Tilahun, Mesfin, 2023. "Numeracy Skills, Decision Errors, and Risk Preference Estimation," CLTS Working Papers 5/23, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies.
    21. Jean-Louis Bago & Bruce Shearer, 2022. "Risk preferences and contract choices," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(5), pages 1374-1398, November.

    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:eee:soceco:v:103:y:2023:i:c:s2214804322001446. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.