Showing 1 - 10 of 479
Consistent with mental accounting, we document that investors sometimes choose the asset allocation for one account without considering the asset allocation of their other accounts. The setting is a firm that changed its 401(k) matching rules. Initially, 401(k) enrollees chose the allocation of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012766791
The equity premium puzzle, first documented by Mehra and Prescott, refers to the empirical fact that stocks have greatly outperformed bonds over the last century. As Mehra and Prescott point out, it appears difficult to explain the magnitude of the equity premium within the usual economics...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013311880
We study expectation-based reference point formation using data from an online auction marketplace. We hypothesize that exit from the marketplace is affected by disappointment from abruptly losing an auction after being the leading bidder. Expectation-based reference points that evolve over time...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012965953
Investments in energy efficiency entail uncertainty, and when faced with uncertainty consumers have been shown to behave according to prospect theory: preferences are reference-dependent and exhibit loss aversion, and probabilities are subjectively weighted. Using data from a choice experiment...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012949426
Behavioral finance tries to make sense of financial data using models that are based on psychologically accurate assumptions about people's beliefs, preferences, and cognitive limits. I review behavioral finance approaches to understanding asset prices and trading volume, with particular...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012916604
This research explores the origins of loss aversion and the variation in its prevalence across regions, nations and ethnic group. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that the evolution of loss aversion in the course of human history can be traced to the adaptation of humans to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012907746
In many settings, decision-makers' behavior is observed to vary based on seemingly arbitrary factors. Such framing effects cast doubt on the welfare conclusions drawn from revealed preference analysis. We relax the assumptions underlying that approach to accommodate settings in which framing...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012909856
Why are contracts incomplete? Transaction costs and bounded rationality cannot be a total explanation since states of the world are often describable, foreseeable, and yet are not mentioned in a contract. Asymmetric information theories also have limitations. We offer an explanation based on...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013082761
Models of reference-dependent preferences propose that individuals evaluate outcomes as gains or losses relative to a neutral reference point. We test for reference dependence in a large dataset of marathon finishing times (n = 9,524,071). Models of reference-dependent preferences such as...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013049699
According to the endowment effect there is some discomfort associated with giving up a good, that is to say, we are willing to give up something only if the price is greater than the price we are willing to pay for it. This implies that the indifference curves should designate a reference point...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013052143