Belief Elicitation When More Than Money Matters: Controlling for Control

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Benoit, Jean-Pierre; Dubra, Juan; Romagnoli, Giorgia
• 署名单位: University of London; London Business School; Universidad de Montevideo; University of Amsterdam
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200017
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 837-888
• 关键词: DECISION-MAKING; confidence; overconfidence; competence; preference; ambiguity; attitudes; rules

摘要

Elicitation mechanisms typically presume only money enters utility functions. However, nonmonetary objectives are confounders. In particular, psychologists argue people favor bets where ability is involved over equivalent random bets-a preference for control. Our new elicitation method mitigates control objectives and determines that under the widely used matching probabilities method, subjects report beliefs 18 percent higher than their true beliefs to increase control. Nonmonetary objectives account for 68 percent of what would normally be measured as overconfidence. We also find that control is only a desire to bet on doing well; betting on doing badly is perceived as a negative.