Perceiving Prospects Properly

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Steiner, Jakub; Stewart, Colin
• 署名单位: Charles University Prague; Czech Academy of Sciences; Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences; University of Edinburgh; University of Toronto
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20141141
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1601-1631
• 关键词: PROBABILITY WEIGHTING FUNCTIONS; RISK; REPRESENTATION; preferences; uncertainty; EVOLUTION; DECISION; BEHAVIOR; utility

摘要

When an agent chooses between prospects, noise in information processing generates an effect akin to the winner's curse. Statistically unbiased perception systematically overvalues the chosen action because it fails to account for the possibility that noise is responsible for making the preferred action appear to be optimal. The optimal perception pattern exhibits a key feature of prospect theory, namely, overweighting of small probability events (and corresponding underweighting of high probability events). This bias arises to correct for the winner's curse effect.