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It´s Not My Money: An Experiment on Risk Aversion and the House-money Effect

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Listed:
  • Luis Roberto Martínez
  • Christian Jaramillo
  • Nicolas De Roux
  • Juan-Camilo Cárdenas

Abstract

The house-money effect -people´s tendency to be more daring with easily-gotten money- is abehavioral pattern that poses questions about the external validity of experiments in economics: to what extent do people behave in experiments like they would have in a real-life situation, given that they play with easily-gotten house money? We ran an economic experiment with 66 students to measure the house-money effect on their risk preferences. They received an amount of money with which they made risky decisions involving losses and gains; a treatment group got the money 21 days in advance and a control group got it the day of the experiment. We find that, when facing possible losses, people in the treatment group showed a lower tolerance to risk than people in the control group. If the players are assumed to have a CRRA utility function and to behave according to expected-utility theory, the risk-attitude adjustment corresponds to an average increase of 1 in their risk aversion coefficient. While the exact pattern of this house-money adjustment differs by gender, it is not possible to determine the sign of this gender effect unambiguously. In any case, it is advisable to include credible controls for the house-money effect in experimental work in economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Roberto Martínez & Christian Jaramillo & Nicolas De Roux & Juan-Camilo Cárdenas, 2010. "It´s Not My Money: An Experiment on Risk Aversion and the House-money Effect," Documentos CEDE 6712, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:006712
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Mickael Beaud & Marc Willinger, 2015. "Are People Risk Vulnerable?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 624-636, March.
    3. Danková, Katarína & Servátka, Maroš, 2015. "The house money effect and negative reciprocity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 60-71.
    4. Christoph Bühren & Thorben C. Kundt, 2013. "Worker or Shirker – Who Evades More Taxes? A Real Effort Experiment," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201326, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    5. Yu Yvette Zhang & Rodolfo M Nayga Jr. & Dinah Pura T Depositario, 2019. "Learning and the possibility of losing own money reduce overbidding: Delayed payment in experimental auctions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-19, May.
    6. Daniel Alfredo Revollo-Fernandez & Alonso Aguilar-Ibarra, 2014. "Measures of risk associated to regulations compliance: a laboratory experiment on the use of common-pool resources," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(7), pages 903-921, August.
    7. Daniel Houser & Erte Xiao, 2015. "House money effects on trust and reciprocity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 187-199, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    House-money effect; risk aversion; prospect theory; economic experiment; external validity.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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