IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pit/wpaper/5864.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Probabilistic Dominance and Status Quo Bias

Author

Listed:
  • Roee Teper

Abstract

Decision makers have a strong tendency to retain the current state of affairs.This well-documented phenomenon is termed status-quo bias. We present theprobabilistic dominance approach to status-quo bias: an alternative is considered acceptableto replace the status quo only if the chances of a (subjectively) severe loss,relative to the status quo, are not too high. Probabilistic dominance is applied andbehaviorally characterized in a choice model that allows for a range of status quo biases,general enough to accommodate unanimity, but also standard expected utilitymaximization. We present a comparative notion of "revealing more bias towards thestatus quo" and study its implications to the probabilistic dominance model of choice.Lastly, the model is applied to the endowment eff ect phenomenon and to a problem ofinternational portfolio choice when investors are home biased.

Suggested Citation

  • Roee Teper, 2010. "Probabilistic Dominance and Status Quo Bias," Working Paper 5864, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh.
    • Handle: RePEc:pit:wpaper:5864
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/WP16-011.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Apesteguia, Jose & Ballester, Miguel A., 2013. "Choice by sequential procedures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 90-99.
    2. Rubinstein, Ariel & Zhou, Lin, 1999. "Choice problems with a 'reference' point," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 205-209, May.
    3. Bossert, Walter & Sprumont, Yves, 2003. "Efficient and non-deteriorating choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 131-142, April.
    4. 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.
    5. Loomes, Graham & Sugden, Robert, 1982. "Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 805-824, December.
    6. H. Henry Cao & Bing Han & David Hirshleifer & Harold H. Zhang, 2011. "Fear of the Unknown: Familiarity and Economic Decisions," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 15(1), pages 173-206.
    7. Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Ok, Efe A., 2005. "Rational choice with status quo bias," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 1-29, March.
    8. Yuval Salant & Ariel Rubinstein, 2008. "(A, f): Choice with Frames -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1287-1296.
    9. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Efe A. Ok, 2014. "A Canonical Model of Choice with Initial Endowments," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 851-883.
    10. Raymond S. Hartman & Michael J. Doane & Chi-Keung Woo, 1991. "Consumer Rationality and the Status Quo," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 141-162.
    11. Sagi, Jacob S., 2006. "Anchored preference relations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 283-295, September.
    12. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    13. Lehrer, Ehud & Teper, Roee, 2011. "Justifiable preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 762-774, March.
    14. Inman, J.J. & Zeelenberg, M., 2002. "Regret in repeat purchase versus switching decisions : The attenuating role of decision justifiability," Other publications TiSEM 44060120-bd30-40e0-a97f-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Ortoleva, Pietro, 2010. "Status quo bias, multiple priors and uncertainty aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 411-424, July.
    16. 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..
    17. Brigitte C. Madrian & Dennis F. Shea, 2001. "The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1149-1187.
    18. Arzac, Enrique R. & Bawa, Vijay S., 1977. "Portfolio choice and equilibrium in capital markets with safety-first investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 277-288, May.
    19. Inman, J Jeffrey & Zeelenberg, Marcel, 2002. "Regret in Repeat Purchase versus Switching Decisions: The Attenuating Role of Decision Justifiability," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 29(1), pages 116-128, June.
    20. David E. Bell, 1982. "Regret in Decision Making under Uncertainty," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(5), pages 961-981, October.
    21. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    22. Johnson, Eric J & Hershey, John & Meszaros, Jacqueline & Kunreuther, Howard, 1993. "Framing, Probability Distortions, and Insurance Decisions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 35-51, August.
    23. 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.
    24. Dennis H. Gensch, 1987. "A Two-Stage Disaggregate Attribute Choice Model," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 223-239.
    25. Julie Agnew & Pierluigi Balduzzi & Annika Sundén, 2003. "Portfolio Choice and Trading in a Large 401(k) Plan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 193-215, March.
    26. Sugden, Robert, 2003. "Reference-dependent subjective expected utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 172-191, August.
    27. Bruno Solnik & Luo Zuo, 2012. "A Global Equilibrium Asset Pricing Model with Home Preference," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 273-292, February.
    28. Munro, Alistair & Sugden, Robert, 2003. "On the theory of reference-dependent preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 407-428, April.
    29. Bruno Solnik & Luo Zuo, 2012. "A Global Equilibrium Asset Pricing Model with Home Preference," Post-Print hal-00679667, HAL.
    30. Zeelenberg, M. & van Dijk, E. & van den Bos, K. & Pieters, R., 2002. "The inaction effect in the psychology of regret," Other publications TiSEM a29106c0-2319-4f60-b213-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    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. Puzanova, K. (Пузанова, К.), 2015. "Urban Environment and the Cultural Space of Megapolis: A Comparative Study of Social Barriers of Urban Development [Городская Среда И Культурное Пространство Мегаполиса: Сравнительное Исследование ," Published Papers mn58, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

    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. Riella, Gil & Teper, Roee, 2014. "Probabilistic dominance and status quo bias," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 288-304.
    2. Dean, Mark & Kıbrıs, Özgür & Masatlioglu, Yusufcan, 2017. "Limited attention and status quo bias," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 93-127.
    3. Guney, Begum & Richter, Michael, 2018. "Costly switching from a status quo," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 55-70.
    4. Mark Dean & Ozgur Kibris & Yusufcan Masatlioglu, 2014. "Limited Attention and Status Quo Bias," Working Papers 2014-11, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    5. Daniele Pennesi, 2013. "Endogenous Status Quo," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 314, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    6. Özgür Kıbrıs & Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Elchin Suleymanov, 2023. "A theory of reference point formation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(1), pages 137-166, January.
    7. Mihm, Maximilian, 2016. "Reference dependent ambiguity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 495-524.
    8. Sautua, Santiago I., 2017. "Does uncertainty cause inertia in decision making? An experimental study of the role of regret aversion and indecisiveness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-14.
    9. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel Ballester, 2009. "A theory of reference-dependent behavior," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(3), pages 427-455, September.
    10. Ortoleva, Pietro, 2010. "Status quo bias, multiple priors and uncertainty aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 411-424, July.
    11. Tserenjigmid, Gerelt, 2019. "Choosing with the worst in mind: A reference-dependent model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 631-652.
    12. Walter Bossert & Yves Sprumont, 2009. "Non‐Deteriorating Choice," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(302), pages 337-363, April.
    13. Kovach, Matthew & Suleymanov, Elchin, 2023. "Reference dependence and random attention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 421-441.
    14. Buturak, Gökhan & Evren, Özgür, 2017. "Choice overload and asymmetric regret," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(3), September.
    15. Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Uler, Neslihan, 2013. "Understanding the reference effect," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 403-423.
    16. Andrew Ellis & Yusufcan Masatlioglu, 2022. "Choice with Endogenous Categorization," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 240-278.
    17. Maniquet, François & Nosratabadi, Hassan, 2022. "Welfare analysis when choice is status-quo biased," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    18. Freeman, David J., 2017. "Preferred personal equilibrium and simple choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 165-172.
    19. Kogler, Christoph & Kühberger, Anton & Gilhofer, Rainer, 2013. "Real and hypothetical endowment effects when exchanging lottery tickets: Is regret a better explanation than loss aversion?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 42-53.
    20. Guney, Begum & Richter, Michael & Tsur, Matan, 2018. "Aspiration-based choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 935-956.

    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:pit:wpaper:5864. 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: Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/depghus.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.