IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v59y2018i3p1159-1186.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Endowment Effect As Blessing

Author

Listed:
  • Sivan Frenkel
  • Yuval Heller
  • Roee Teper

Abstract

We study the idea that seemingly unrelated behavioral biases can coevolve if they jointly compensate for the errors that any one of them would give rise to in isolation. We suggest that the “endowment effect” and the “winner's curse” could have jointly survived natural selection together. We develop a new family of “hybrid‐replicator” dynamics. Under such dynamics, biases survive in the population for a long period of time even if they only partially compensate for each other and despite the fact that the rational type's payoff is strictly larger than the payoffs of all other types.

Suggested Citation

  • Sivan Frenkel & Yuval Heller & Roee Teper, 2018. "The Endowment Effect As Blessing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1159-1186, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:59:y:2018:i:3:p:1159-1186
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12300
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12300?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jehiel, Philippe & Koessler, Frédéric, 2008. "Revisiting games of incomplete information with analogy-based expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 533-557, March.
    2. Ted Bergstrom & Carl Bergstrom, 2001. "Does Mother Nature Punish Rotten Kids?," Game Theory and Information 0106004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Arthur J. Robson & Larry Samuelson, 2009. "The Evolution of Time Preference with Aggregate Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1925-1953, December.
    4. William H. Sandholm, 2001. "Preference Evolution, Two-Speed Dynamics, and Rapid Social Change," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(3), pages 637-679, July.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Dan Lovallo, 1993. "Timid Choices and Bold Forecasts: A Cognitive Perspective on Risk Taking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(1), pages 17-31, January.
    6. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2013. "Homo Moralis—Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2269-2302, November.
    7. Oechssler, Jorg & Riedel, Frank, 2002. "On the Dynamic Foundation of Evolutionary Stability in Continuous Models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 223-252, December.
    8. Heller, Yuval, 2015. "Three steps ahead," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(1), January.
    9. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    10. Antonio E. Bernardo & Ivo Welch, 2001. "On the Evolution of Overconfidence and Entrepreneurs," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 301-330, September.
    11. Jehiel, Philippe, 2005. "Analogy-based expectation equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 81-104, August.
    12. Heifetz, Aviad & Segev, Ella, 2004. "The evolutionary role of toughness in bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 117-134, October.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    16. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2007. "Estimating Risk Attitudes in Denmark: A Field Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(2), pages 341-368, June.
    17. Steffen Huck & Georg Kirchsteiger & Jörg Oechssler, 2005. "Learning to like what you have - explaining the endowment effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(505), pages 689-702, July.
    18. Jorgen W. Weibull, 1997. "Evolutionary Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262731215, December.
    19. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2005. "Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation," International Economic Association Series, in: Bina Agarwal & Alessandro Vercelli (ed.), Psychology, Rationality and Economic Behaviour, chapter 2, pages 19-57, Palgrave Macmillan.
    20. Sheharyar Bokhari & David Geltner, 2011. "Loss Aversion and Anchoring in Commercial Real Estate Pricing: Empirical Evidence and Price Index Implications," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 635-670, December.
    21. Olivier Compte & Andrew Postlewaite, 2004. "Confidence-Enhanced Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1536-1557, December.
    22. Luke Lindsay, 2011. "Market Experience and willingness to trade: evidence from repeated markets with symmetric and asymmetric information," ECON - Working Papers 005, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    23. repec:hhs:iuiwop:487 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Brit Grosskopf & Yoella Bereby-Meyer & Max Bazerman, 2007. "On the Robustness of the Winner’s Curse Phenomenon," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 389-418, December.
    25. Norman, Thomas W.L., 2008. "Dynamically stable sets in infinite strategy spaces," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 610-627, March.
    26. Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart, 2016. "Perceiving Prospects Properly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1601-1631, July.
    27. Ok, Efe A. & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2001. "On the Evolution of Individualistic Preferences: An Incomplete Information Scenario," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 231-254, April.
    28. Waldman, Michael, 1994. "Systematic Errors and the Theory of Natural Selection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 482-497, June.
    29. Florian Herold, 2012. "Carrot or Stick? The Evolution of Reciprocal Preferences in a Haystack Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 914-940, April.
    30. Aviad Heifetz & Chris Shannon & Yossi Spiegel, 2007. "The Dynamic Evolution of Preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(2), pages 251-286, August.
    31. Cade Massey & Richard H. Thaler, 2013. "The Loser's Curse: Decision Making and Market Efficiency in the National Football League Draft," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(7), pages 1479-1495, July.
    32. Jack Knetsch & Fang-Fang Tang & Richard Thaler, 2001. "The Endowment Effect and Repeated Market Trials: Is the Vickrey Auction Demand Revealing?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(3), pages 257-269, December.
    33. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    34. Eddie Dekel & Jeffrey C. Ely & Okan Yilankaya, 2007. "Evolution of Preferences -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 685-704.
    35. Cressman, R., 1997. "Local stability of smooth selection dynamics for normal form games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-19, August.
    36. John A. List, 2004. "Neoclassical Theory Versus Prospect Theory: Evidence from the Marketplace," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 615-625, March.
    37. Nachbar, J H, 1990. ""Evolutionary" Selection Dynamics in Games: Convergence and Limit Properties," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 19(1), pages 59-89.
    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. Herold, Florian & Netzer, Nick, 2023. "Second-best probability weighting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 112-125.
    2. Heller, Yuval & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Coevolution of deception and preferences: Darwin and Nash meet Machiavelli," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 223-247.
    3. Srinivas Arigapudi & Omer Edhan & Yuval Heller & Ziv Hellman, 2022. "Mentors and Recombinators: Multi-Dimensional Social Learning," Papers 2205.00278, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    4. Häfner, Samuel, 2018. "Stable biased sampling," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 109-122.
    5. Yuval Heller & Eyal Winter, 2016. "Rule Rationality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(3), pages 997-1026, August.
    6. Jae-Do Song & Young-Hwan Ahn, 2019. "Cognitive Bias in Emissions Trading," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-13, March.
    7. Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart, 2016. "Perceiving Prospects Properly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1601-1631, July.
    8. Lindsay, Luke, 2019. "Adaptive loss aversion and market experience," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 43-61.
    9. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    10. Heller, Yuval & Sturrock, David, 2017. "Promises and Endogenous Reneging Costs," MPRA Paper 78803, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Roee Teper, 2014. "The Endowment Effect as a Blessing," Working Paper 5862, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh.
    2. Frenkel, Sivan & Heller, Yuval & Teper, Roee, 2012. "Endowment as a blessing," MPRA Paper 39430, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 2012.
    3. Norman, Thomas W.L., 2012. "Equilibrium selection and the dynamic evolution of preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 311-320.
    4. Lindsay, Luke, 2019. "Adaptive loss aversion and market experience," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 43-61.
    5. Herold, Florian & Netzer, Nick, 2023. "Second-best probability weighting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 112-125.
    6. John A. List & Michael S. Haigh, 2010. "Investment Under Uncertainty: Testing the Options Model with Professional Traders," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 974-984, November.
    7. Lahkar, Ratul, 2019. "Elimination of non-individualistic preferences in large population aggregative games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 150-165.
    8. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "Viewpoint: On the generalizability of lab behaviour to the field," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(2), pages 347-370, May.
    9. Heller, Yuval & Mohlin, Erik, 2019. "Coevolution of deception and preferences: Darwin and Nash meet Machiavelli," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 223-247.
    10. Heller, Yuval & Sturrock, David, 2020. "Promises and endogenous reneging costs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    11. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    12. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    13. Burkhard C. Schipper, 2021. "The evolutionary stability of optimism, pessimism, and complete ignorance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 417-454, May.
    14. Andrea Isoni, 2011. "The willingness-to-accept/willingness-to-pay disparity in repeated markets: loss aversion or ‘bad-deal’ aversion?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 409-430, September.
    15. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    16. John List & Michael Price, 2013. "Using Field Experiments in Environmental and Resource Economics," Artefactual Field Experiments 00447, The Field Experiments Website.
    17. Wu, Jiabin, 2017. "Political institutions and the evolution of character traits," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 260-276.
    18. Ingela Alger & Laurent Lehmann, 2023. "Evolution of Semi-Kantian Preferences in Two-Player Assortative Interactions with Complete and Incomplete Information and Plasticity," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 1288-1319, December.
    19. Yuval Heller & Eyal Winter, 2016. "Rule Rationality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(3), pages 997-1026, August.
    20. Handberg, Øyvind Nystad, 2018. "No sense of ownership in weak participation: a forest conservation experiment in Tanzania," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 434-451, August.

    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:iecrev:v:59:y:2018:i:3:p:1159-1186. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.