When "hope springs eternal": The role of chance in risk taking

Natalia Karelaia and Robin Hogarth ()

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: In most naturally occurring situations, success depends on both skill and chance. We contrast experimental market entry decisions where payoffs depend on skill as opposed to combinations of skill and chance. Our data show differential attitudes toward chance by those whose self-assessed skills are low and high. Making chance more important induces greater optimism for the former who start taking more risk, while the latter maintain a belief that high levels of skill are sufficient to overcome the vagaries of chance. Finally, although we observed “excess entry” (i.e., too many participants entered markets), this could not be attributed to overconfidence.

Keywords: Skill; chance; overconfidence; optimism; competition; risk taking; gender differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-12, Revised 2009-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-ent, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-upt
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:upf:upfgen:1131

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