When to Walk Away and When to Risk It All

Scott DeAngelis and W Viscusi

Journal of Sports Economics, 2020, vol. 21, issue 5, 525-547

Abstract: While one might expect athletes to be strongly averse to extending their career too long when there is a chance of losing everything due to a concussion or a catastrophic injury, experimental subjects consistently played longer than the optimal amount for risk-neutral decisions. A commitment to the length of play in advance, as in the case of long-term contracts, led to a greater chance of staying beyond the expected payoff-maximizing point. If the decision frame is altered so that decisions are made in each period rather than through an upfront commitment, the magnitude of potential losses is more evident.

Keywords: risk; concussion; loss aversion; framing; commitment; long-term contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002520914699 (text/html)

Related works:
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:sae:jospec:v:21:y:2020:i:5:p:525-547

DOI: 10.1177/1527002520914699

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Sports Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().