IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ihs/ihsesp/92.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Endowment Effect, Status Quo Bias and Loss Aversion: Rational Alternative Explanation

Author

Listed:
  • Dupont, Dominique Y.

    (EURANDOM, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The endowment effect, status quo bias, and loss aversion are robust and well documented results from experimental psychology. They introduce a wedge between the prices at which one is willing to sell or buy a good. The objective of this paper is to address this wedge. We show that the presence of asymmetric information in a rational-agent framework can account for the endowment effect, status quo bias and loss aversion as well as psychology-based explanations proposed in the past.

Suggested Citation

  • Dupont, Dominique Y., 2001. "The Endowment Effect, Status Quo Bias and Loss Aversion: Rational Alternative Explanation," Economics Series 92, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:92
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/1320
    File Function: First version, 2001
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard H. Thaler & Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman & Alan Schwartz, 1997. "The Effect of Myopia and Loss Aversion on Risk Taking: An Experimental Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 647-661.
    2. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    3. Olsen, Robert A., 1997. "Prospect theory as an explanation of risky choice by professional investors: Some evidence," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 225-232.
    4. Ian Bateman & Alistair Munro & Bruce Rhodes & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 1997. "A Test of the Theory of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 479-505.
    5. Milgrom, Paul & Stokey, Nancy, 1982. "Information, trade and common knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-27, February.
    6. Bowman, David & Minehart, Deborah & Rabin, Matthew, 1999. "Loss aversion in a consumption-savings model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 155-178, February.
    7. Glosten, Lawrence R. & Milgrom, Paul R., 1985. "Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 71-100, March.
    8. van Dijk, Eric & van Knippenberg, Daan, 1996. "Buying and selling exchange goods: Loss aversion and the endowment effect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 517-524, August.
    9. 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..
    10. Franciosi, Robert & Kujal, Praveen & Michelitsch, Roland & Smith, Vernon & Deng, Gang, 1996. "Experimental tests of the endowment effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 213-226, August.
    11. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    12. Jones-Lee, M W & Hammerton, M & Philips, P R, 1985. "The Value of Safety: Results of a National Sample Survey," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(377), pages 49-72, March.
    13. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1325-1348, December.
    14. van Dijk, Eric & van Knippenberg, Daan, 1998. "Trading wine: On the endowment effect, loss aversion, and the comparability of consumer goods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 485-495, August.
    15. Hoorens, Vera & Remmers, Nicole & van de Riet, Kamieke, 1999. "Time is an amazingly variable amount of money: Endowment and ownership effects in the subjective value of working time," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 383-405, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.
    2. Gächter, Simon & Johnson, Eric J. & Herrmann, Andreas, 2007. "Individual-Level Loss Aversion in Riskless and Risky Choices," IZA Discussion Papers 2961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Peter Brooks & Horst Zank, 2005. "Loss Averse Behavior," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 301-325, December.
    4. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    5. Ulrich Schmidt & Stefan Traub, 2009. "An Experimental Investigation of the Disparity Between WTA and WTP for Lotteries," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 66(3), pages 229-262, March.
    6. Laura Hueber & Rene Schwaiger, 2021. "Debiasing Through Experience Sampling: The Case of Myopic Loss Aversion," Working Papers 2021-01, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    7. Ido Erev & Sharon Gilat-Yihyie & Davide Marchiori & Doron Sonsino, 2015. "On loss aversion, level-1 reasoning, and betting," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(1), pages 113-133, February.
    8. Eyal Zamir & Ilana Ritov, 2010. "Revisiting the Debate over Attorneys' Contingent Fees: A Behavioral Analysis," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 245-288, January.
    9. Roth, Gerrit, 2006. "Predicting the Gap between Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay," Munich Dissertations in Economics 4901, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    10. Hueber, Laura & Schwaiger, Rene, 2022. "Debiasing through experience sampling: The case of myopic loss aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 87-138.
    11. Per Engström & Katarina Nordblom & Henry Ohlsson & Annika Persson, 2015. "Tax Compliance and Loss Aversion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 132-164, November.
    12. Mandel, David R., 2002. "Beyond mere ownership: transaction demand as a moderator of the endowment effect," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 737-747, July.
    13. Neuman, Einat & Neuman, Shoshana, 2007. "Reference-Dependent Preferences and Loss Aversion: A Discrete Choice Experiment in the Health-Care Sector," IZA Discussion Papers 3238, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    15. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    16. Michał Lewandowski, 2017. "Prospect Theory Versus Expected Utility Theory: Assumptions, Predictions, Intuition and Modelling of Risk Attitudes," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 9(4), pages 275-321, December.
    17. Hochman, Guy & Ayal, Shahar & Ariely, Dan, 2014. "Keeping your gains close but your money closer: The prepayment effect in riskless choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 582-594.
    18. Bateman, Ian & Kahneman, Daniel & Munro, Alistair & Starmer, Chris & Sugden, Robert, 2005. "Testing competing models of loss aversion: an adversarial collaboration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1561-1580, August.
    19. 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.
    20. Erica Mina Okada, 2010. "Uncertainty, Risk Aversion, and WTA vs. WTP," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 75-84, 01-02.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Endowment effect; Status quo bias; Loss aversion; Asymmetric information; Bid/ask spread;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

    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:ihs:ihsesp:92. 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: Doris Szoncsitz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deihsat.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.