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Anchoring in financial decision-making: Evidence from Jeopardy!

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  • Jetter, Michael
  • Walker, Jay K.

Abstract

This paper analyzes 12,596 Daily Double wagering decisions of 6064 contestants in the US game show Jeopardy!. We exploit a situation in which a player has to, unexpectedly, wager on responding correctly to an unknown clue (known as a Daily Double clue). We find evidence consistent with the hypothesis of contestants anchoring heavily on the initial dollar value of a clue in wagering. This positive relationship remains statistically significant at the one percent level after controlling for other characteristics that may independently affect wagering decisions, such as scores, clue categories, time trends, individual Jeopardy! experience, and player-fixed effects. Exploiting within-player variation only, raising the anchoring amount by $100 translates to an increase of $29 in the wager. An alternative explanation of underlying strategic considerations appears unlikely and results are consistent throughout a number of robustness checks. Overall, these findings suggest that anchoring can play a substantial role in financial decision-making under pressure.

Suggested Citation

  • Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2017. "Anchoring in financial decision-making: Evidence from Jeopardy!," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 164-176.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:141:y:2017:i:c:p:164-176
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.07.006
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    3. Booth, Alison & Lee, Jungmin, 2021. "Girls’ and boys’ performance in competitions: What we can learn from a Korean quiz show," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 431-447.
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    7. Jetter Michael & Walker Jay K., 2020. "Gender Differences in Performance and Risk-taking among Children, Teenagers, and College Students: Evidence from Jeopardy!," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-24, April.
    8. Thomas Holtfort & Andreas Horsch, 2023. "Social science goes quantum: explaining human decision-making, cognitive biases and Darwinian selection from a quantum perspective," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 99-116, August.
    9. Ünveren, Burak & Baycar, Kazım, 2019. "Historical evidence for anchoring bias: The 1875 cadastral survey in Istanbul," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Jetter, Michael & Stockley, Kieran, 2021. "Gender Match and the Gender Gap in Venture Capital Financing: Evidence from Shark Tank," IZA Discussion Papers 14069, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Persichina, Marco & Kriström, Bengt, 2022. "Self-selected intervals in psycho-physic experiments and the measurement of willingness to pay," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    12. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2020. "At what age does the anchoring heuristic emerge? Evidence from Jeopardy!," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 757-766.
    13. Jiachen Nan, 2021. "The General Financial Education in China: Evidence From Ratio of Undergraduate Financial Education Majors in Universities," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 24(1), pages 302-316, October.
    14. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2017. "Gender Differences in Competitiveness and Risk-Taking among Children, Teenagers, and College Students: Evidence from Jeopardy!," IZA Discussion Papers 11201, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Sarah A. Kusumastuti & Jim Blythe & Heather Rosoff & Richard S. John, 2020. "Behavioral Determinants of Target Shifting and Deterrence in an Analog Cyber‐Attack Game," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(3), pages 476-493, March.
    16. Benjamin Enke & Uri Gneezy & Brian Hall & David Martin & Vadim Nelidov & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2023. "Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 818-832, July.
    17. Michael Jetter & Kieran Stockley, 2023. "Gender match and negotiation: evidence from angel investment on Shark Tank," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(4), pages 1947-1977, April.
    18. Holtfort, Thomas, 2023. "Quantenökonomie: Einfluss der Quantenphysik auf ökonomische Entscheidungsprozesse," Arbeitspapiere der FOM 88, FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management.
    19. Booth, Alison & Lee, Jungmin, 2019. "Girls’ and Boys’ Performance in Competitions: What We Can Learn from a Korean Quiz Show," CEPR Discussion Papers 13552, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Bhootra, Ajay, 2018. "Another look at anchoring and stock return predictability," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 259-265.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Anchoring; Behavioral economics; Financial decision-making; Heuristics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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