IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/canjec/v55y2022i3p1460-1479.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Asset integration and risk‐taking in the laboratory

Author

Listed:
  • William G. Morrison
  • Robert J. Oxoby

Abstract

We report on a laboratory experiment designed to assess risk preferences in a decision environment where real losses can occur. Specifically, we utilize an asset integration protocol designed to ensure that cash provided to treatment group participants by the experimenter is fully integrated into each individual's wealth. This cash is placed at stake in an incentivized risk‐preference elicitation task based on the well‐known Holt and Laury (2002, 2005) methodology. Our experimental design allows us to distinguish between the predictions of expected utility and prospect theory. We find that features consistent with expected utility theory, constant relative risk aversion and rank dependent expected utility functions, are insufficient to explain our experimental results. However, preference functions based on prospect theory, accounting specifically for loss aversion, capture the observed behaviour of participants in the experiment. Intégration d'un actif et prise de risque en laboratoire. Le présent rapport se penche sur une expérience en laboratoire conçue pour évaluer les préférences en matière de risque dans un environnement décisionnel où des pertes réelles peuvent être subies. Plus particulièrement, nous utilisons un protocole d'intégration d'actif conçu pour faire en sorte que les sommes versées aux participants du groupe de traitement par l'expérimentateur sont pleinement intégrées au patrimoine de chaque personne. Ces sommes sont pariées dans une tâche d'élicitation des préférences pour le risque avec incitations basée sur la méthodologie bien connue de Holt et Laury (2002, 2005). Notre plan expérimental nous permet de distinguer entre les prédictions de l'espérance d'utilité et la théorie des perspectives. Nous constatons que des éléments conformes à la théorie de l'espérance d'utilité, à l'aversion relative au risque constant et aux fonctions d'espérance d'utilité dépendante du rang ne suffisent pas à expliquer nos résultats expérimentaux. Toutefois, les fonctions de préférence basées sur la théorie des perspectives, plus particulièrement le fait de tenir compte de l'aversion à la perte, saisissent le comportement observé chez les participants à l'expérience.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:canjec:v:55:y:2022:i:3:p:1460-1479
    DOI: 10.1111/caje.12615
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/caje.12615
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/caje.12615?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard H. Thaler & Shlomo Benartzi, 2004. "Save More Tomorrow (TM): Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 164-187, February.
    2. Harrison, Glenn W. & Lau, Morten I. & Ross, Don & Swarthout, J. Todd, 2017. "Small stakes risk aversion in the laboratory: A reconsideration," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 24-28.
    3. Ruffle, Bradley J., 1998. "More Is Better, But Fair Is Fair: Tipping in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 247-265, May.
    4. Oxoby, Robert J. & Spraggon, John, 2008. "Mine and yours: Property rights in dictator games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 703-713, March.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Corina Paraschiv, 2007. "Loss Aversion Under Prospect Theory: A Parameter-Free Measurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(10), pages 1659-1674, October.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    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. Matthew Rabin, 2000. "Risk Aversion and Expected-Utility Theory: A Calibration Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1281-1292, September.
    13. Matilde Bombardini & Francesco Trebbi, 2012. "Risk Aversion And Expected Utility Theory: An Experiment With Large And Small Stakes," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1348-1399, December.
    14. Bowman, David & Minehart, Deborah & Rabin, Matthew, 1999. "Loss aversion in a consumption-savings model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 155-178, February.
    15. 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.
    16. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Ahmed Driouchi & Olivier L’Haridon, 2011. "Risk aversion elicitation: reconciling tractability and bias minimization," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(1), pages 63-80, July.
    19. 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..
    20. Robert J. Oxoby & John Spraggon, 2013. "A Clear And Present Minority: Heterogeneity In The Source Of Endowments And The Provision Of Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(4), pages 2071-2082, October.
    21. 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.
    22. Spraggon, John & Oxoby, Robert J., 2009. "An experimental investigation of endowment source heterogeneity in two-person public good games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 102-105, August.
    23. McLeish, Kendra N. & Oxoby, Robert J., 2007. "Gender, Affect and Intertemporal Consistency: An Experimental Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 2663, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    24. 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.
    25. Drazen Prelec, 1998. "The Probability Weighting Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 497-528, May.
    26. 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.
    27. Ferdinand M. Vieider, 2018. "Violence and Risk Preference: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2366-2382, August.
    28. Juan Cárdenas & Nicolas Roux & Christian Jaramillo & Luis Martinez, 2014. "Is it my money or not? An experiment on risk aversion and the house-money effect," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 47-60, March.
    29. Maribeth Coller & Melonie Williams, 1999. "Eliciting Individual Discount Rates," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(2), pages 107-127, December.
    30. Nicholas C. Barberis, 2013. "Thirty Years of Prospect Theory in Economics: A Review and Assessment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 173-196, Winter.
    31. Mohammed Abdellaoui, 2000. "Parameter-Free Elicitation of Utility and Probability Weighting Functions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(11), pages 1497-1512, November.
    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. 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. Kpegli, Yao Thibaut & Corgnet, Brice & Zylbersztejn, Adam, 2023. "All at once! A comprehensive and tractable semi-parametric method to elicit prospect theory components," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Glenn W. Harrison & J. Todd Swarthout, 2016. "Cumulative Prospect Theory in the Laboratory: A Reconsideration," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2016-04, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    5. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Vitalie Spinu, 2020. "Searching for the Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 93-112, January.
    6. Horst Zank, 2010. "On probabilities and loss aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 243-261, March.
    7. 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.
    8. William Morrison and Robert Oxoby, 2010. "Loss Aversion in the Laboratory," LCERPA Working Papers lm0072, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, revised 1970.
    9. 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.
    10. Yao Thibaut Kpegli, 2023. "Smoothing Spline Method for Measuring Prospect Theory Components," Working Papers 2303, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Géraldine Bocquého & Julien Jacob & Marielle Brunette, 2020. "Prospect theory in experiments : behaviour in loss domain and framing effects," Working Papers hal-02987294, HAL.
    14. Simon Gaechter & Eric Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2007. "Individual-Level Loss Aversion In Riskless And Risky Choices," Discussion Papers 2007-02, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    15. Víctor González-Jiménez, 2021. "Incentive contracts when agents distort probabilities," Vienna Economics Papers vie2101, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    16. Stephen L. Cheung, 2020. "Eliciting utility curvature in time preference," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 493-525, June.
    17. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Corina Paraschiv, 2007. "Loss Aversion Under Prospect Theory: A Parameter-Free Measurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(10), pages 1659-1674, October.
    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. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier, 2013. "Prospect theory in the health domain: A quantitative assessment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1057-1065.
    20. Adam Booij & Bernard Praag & Gijs Kuilen, 2010. "A parametric analysis of prospect theory’s functionals for the general population," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 115-148, February.

    More about this item

    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:wly:canjec:v:55:y:2022:i:3:p:1460-1479. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5982 .

    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.