IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/rwirep/75.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

WTP vs.WTA: Christmas Presents and the Endowment Effect

Author

Listed:
  • Bauer, Thomas K.
  • Schmidt, Christoph M.

Abstract

Using data on the valuation of Christmas gifts received by students in different fields at a German university, we investigate whether the endowment effect differs between students of economics and other respondents and whether it varies with the market price of the object under consideration. Our estimation results suggest that economics students have both, a significant lower WTP and WTA, indicating that existing studies on the efficiency loss of holiday gifts and experimental studies on the endowment effect that rely on data from economics students may be biased. The result further indicate that the endowment effect is independent of the market price of the object.

Suggested Citation

  • Bauer, Thomas K. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2008. "WTP vs.WTA: Christmas Presents and the Endowment Effect," Ruhr Economic Papers 75, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:75
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/26841/1/588120138.PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jack L. Knetsch & J. A. Sinden, 1984. "Willingness to Pay and Compensation Demanded: Experimental Evidence of an Unexpected Disparity in Measures of Value," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(3), pages 507-521.
    2. Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2005. "Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 523-534, February.
    3. List, John A. & Shogren, Jason F., 2002. "Calibration of Willingness-to-Accept," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 219-233, March.
    4. repec:feb:framed:0054 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Waldfogel, Joel, 1993. "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1328-1336, December.
    6. 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.
    7. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    8. List, John A & Shogren, Jason F, 1998. "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1350-1355, December.
    9. 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.
    10. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laura Birg & Anna Goeddeke, 2016. "Christmas Economics—A Sleigh Ride," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1980-1984, October.
    2. Birg, Laura & Pommeranz, Simon, 2018. "The deadweight loss of christmas - Reply," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 361, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    3. Parag Waknis & Ajit Gaikwad, 2017. "The Deadweight Loss of Diwali: A Developing Country Perspective on Economics of Gift Giving," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 530-538.
    4. Vic Benuyenah, 2021. "Face-saving and Seasonal Gifts: Analysis of Cultural Exchanges in the Confucian Market Place," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 11(2), pages 59-66.

    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. Thomas K. Bauer & Christoph M. Schmidt, 2008. "WTP vs.WTA: Christmas Presents and the Endowment Effect," Ruhr Economic Papers 0075, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    2. repec:zbw:rwirep:0075 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Santosh Anagol & Vimal Balasubramaniam & Tarun Ramadorai, 2018. "Endowment Effects in the Field: Evidence from India’s IPO Lotteries," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 1971-2004.
    6. John K. Horowitz & Kenneth E. McConnell & James J. Murphy, 2013. "Behavioral foundations of environmental economics and valuation," Chapters, in: John A. List & Michael K. Price (ed.), Handbook on Experimental Economics and the Environment, chapter 4, pages 115-156, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. John List, 2021. "How Field Experiments in Economics Can Complement Psychological Research on Judgment Biases," Natural Field Experiments 00738, The Field Experiments Website.
    8. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2016. "Field Experiments in Markets," Artefactual Field Experiments j0002, The Field Experiments Website.
    9. 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.
    10. John A. List & Michael S. Haigh, 2010. "Investment Under Uncertainty: Testing the Options Model with Professional Traders," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 974-984, November.
    11. Shogren, Jason F. & Cho, Sungwon & Koo, Cannon & List, John & Park, Changwon & Polo, Pablo & Wilhelmi, Robert, 2001. "Auction mechanisms and the measurement of WTP and WTA," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 97-109, April.
    12. Omar Al-Ubaydli & Faith Fatchen & John List, 2024. "Using Field Experiments to Understand the Impact of Institutions on Economic Growth," Natural Field Experiments 00787, The Field Experiments Website.
    13. Eric Floyd & John A. List, 2016. "Using Field Experiments in Accounting and Finance," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 437-475, May.
    14. Clark, Jeremy & Friesen, Lana, 2008. "The causes of order effects in contingent valuation surveys: An experimental investigation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 195-206, September.
    15. Bodo Sturm & Joachim Weimann, 2006. "Experiments in Environmental Economics and Some Close Relatives," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 419-457, July.
    16. Brian Albrecht & Omar Al-Ubaydli & Peter Boettke, 2022. "Testing the Hayek hypothesis: Recent theoretical and experimental evidence," Artefactual Field Experiments 00759, The Field Experiments Website.
    17. Tanjim Hossain & John A. List, 2012. "The Behavioralist Visits the Factory: Increasing Productivity Using Simple Framing Manipulations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(12), pages 2151-2167, December.
    18. Elisabeth Vollmer & Daniel Hermann & Oliver Musshoff, 2019. "The disposition effect in farmers’ selling behavior: an experimental investigation," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 50(2), pages 177-189, March.
    19. Summers, Barbara & Duxbury, Darren, 2012. "Decision-dependent emotions and behavioral anomalies," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 226-238.
    20. repec:ken:wpaper:0804 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Hallsworth, Michael & List, John A. & Metcalfe, Robert D. & Vlaev, Ivo, 2017. "The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 14-31.
    22. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Loss aversion; endowment effect; Christmas presents; deadweight loss;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D49 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Other
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis

    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:zbw:rwirep:75. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rwiesde.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.