Contingent Thinking and the Sure-Thing Principle: Revisiting Classic Anomalies in the Laboratory

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Esponda, Ignacio; Vespa, Emanuel
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdad102
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2806-2831
• 关键词: ambiguity aversion literature; winners curse; hypothetical thinking; rational choice; uncertainty; auctions; BEHAVIOR; PARADOX; RISK; game

摘要

We present an experimental framework to study the extent to which failures of contingent thinking explain classic anomalies in a broad class of environments, including overbidding in auctions and the Ellsberg paradox. We study environments in which the subject's choices affect payoffs only in some states but not in others. We find that anomalies are in large part driven by incongruences between choices in the standard presentation of each problem and a contingent presentation, which focuses the subject on the set of states where her actions matter. Additional evidence suggests that this phenomenon is in large part driven by people's failure to put themselves in states that have not yet happened even though they are made aware that their actions only matter in those states.