Bidding challenges learning theories, since with the same bid, experiences vary stochastically: the same choice can result in either a gain or a loss. In such an environment the question arises how the nearly universally documented phenomenon of loss aversion affects the adaptive dynamics. We...

We introduce a new method of varying the risk that bidders face in first-price private value auctions. We find that decreasing bidders' risk significantly reduces the degree of overbidding relative to the risk-neutral Bayesian-Nash equilibrium prediction. This implies that risk affects bidding...