Violence and Risk Preference: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan: Comment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Vieider, Ferdinand M.
• 署名单位: University of Reading
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20160789
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 2366-2382
• 关键词: expected-utility-theory; prospect-theory; CHOICE; time; disappointment; probability; DECISION; Heterogeneity; BEHAVIOR; aversion

摘要

In this comment on Callen et al. (20141), I revisit recent evidence uncovering a preference for certainty in violation of dominant normative and descriptive theories of decision-making under risk. I show that the empirical findings are potentially confounded by systematic noise. I then develop choice lists that allow me to disentangle these different explanations. Experimental results obtained with these lists reject explanations based on a preference for certainty in favor of explanations based on random choice. From a theoretical point of view, the levels of risk aversion detected in the choice list involving certainty can be accounted for by prospect theory through reference dependence activated by salient outcomes.