When the shoe is on the other foot: experimental evidence on evaluation disparities

Lucy Ackert, Bryan K. Church and Gerald Dwyer

No 2005-17, FRB Atlanta Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Abstract: Research provides evidence that the method chosen to elicit value has an important effect on a person?s valuation. We hypothesize that role has a crucial effect on decision makers? elicited values: Buyers prefer to pay less and sellers prefer to collect more. We conduct experimental sessions and replicate the disparity between willingness to pay and willingness to accept. We conduct additional sessions in which role is stripped away: Endowed decision makers provide values that are used to determine a price at which anonymous others transact. Importantly, decision makers? earnings in the experiment are not affected by the elicited values, but the endowments influence decision makers? valuations. Our findings suggest that decision makers consider their relative standing, in comparison to anonymous others, in providing valuations. The disparity between willingness to pay and willingness to accept disappears when decision makers? endowments ensure that they are at least as well off as other participants.

Date: 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.atlantafed.org/-/media/documents/resea ... s/wp/2005/wp0517.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: When the Shoe is on the Other Foot: Experimental Evidence on Valuation Disparities (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedawp:2005-17

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in FRB Atlanta Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Rob Sarwark ().