Exchange asymmetries for bads? Experimental evidence

Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt () and Katrin Köhler

No 161, DICE Discussion Papers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)

Abstract: Whereas exchange asymmetries for goods are well known, we provide a first incentivized test of exchange asymmetries for bads (i.e., items yielding a negative utility). On the one hand, prospect theory predicts an endowment effect for goods and bads, on the other hand, attention-based theories such as salience theory predict an endowment effect for goods, but a reverse endowment effect (i.e., a particular high willingness to switch) for bads. Since both strands of research often make the same predictions concerning biased decision making, the investigation of exchange asymmetries for bads is a key element to distinguish between their validity. In our experiment, we find a strong endowment effect for bads, so that our results speak in favor of prospect theory.

Keywords: Loss Aversion; Salience Theory; Prospect Theory; Endowment Effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/102716/1/798331038.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Exchange asymmetries for bads? Experimental evidence (2016)
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:zbw:dicedp:161

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in DICE Discussion Papers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().