Evidence increasingly points to the importance of reference-dependence in predicting consumer behavior. We utilize detailed data from penny auctions, which first appeared as an internet phenomenon in the late 2000's, to uncover how consumers' prior experiences predict their willingness to try a...

When interacting with others, individuals are often known to adjust their behavior based on the gender characteristics of the other person. Information about another person’s gender tends to influence both behavior towards that individual, as well as expectations about that individual’s...

We investigate the relative merits of the Boston and Serial Dictatorship mechanisms when the timing of students' preference submission over schools varies within the structure of the mechanism. Despite the well-documented disadvantages of the Boston mechanism (Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez, 2003),...

How does an individual’s position within a social distribution influence their desire to take risk? Reference-dependent loss aversion (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Koszegi and Rabin, 2006, 2007) adapted to a social distribution setting, suggests that individuals could find risk more appealing at...

We propose a simple commitment mechanism prior to a public goods contribution game. Each player simultaneously and independently proposes a deduction rate, which serves as a proposal for the rate by which the return on private investment accounts will be reduced. The group deduction rate is...

Individual contributions to public goods can be framed in absolute or relative metrics. We examine how the framing salience affects the contribution behavior when group members are heterogeneously endowed, based on a reference-dependent theory with salience weights allocated to the absolute or...

Individual contributions to public goods can be framed in absolute or relative metrics. We examine the effects of asymmetric framing and informational feedback on contributions when group members are heterogeneously endowed. We develop a reference-dependent theory in which the absolute or...