You Need to Recognise Ambiguity to Avoid It

Chew Soo Hong, Mark Ratchford and Jacob S. Sagi

Economic Journal, 2018, vol. 128, issue 614, 2480-2506

Abstract: After screening for attentiveness and comprehension, we present subjects with Ellsberg's (1961) two‐urn problem using essentially equivalent but representationally complex matrices. High‐comprehension subjects exhibit rates of ambiguity aversion typical of the standard two‐urn problem, while low‐comprehension subjects appear to randomise. In screening, we classify subjects as ‘probability‐minded’ or ‘ambiguity‐minded’, depending on whether they assign probabilities to draws from a card deck of unknown composition. Among high‐comprehension subjects, ‘mindedness’ explains twenty times more variation in ambiguity attitudes than all other demographic characteristics combined. Compared with their ‘probability‐minded’ counterparts, ‘ambiguity‐minded’ subjects are younger and more educated, analytic, and reflective about their choices.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12541

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:wly:econjl:v:128:y:2018:i:614:p:2480-2506

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1111/(ISSN)1468-0297

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is currently edited by Estelle Cantillon, Martin Cripps, Andrea Galeotti, Morten Ravn, Kjell G. Salvanes, Frederic Vermeulen, Hans-Joachim Voth and Rachel Kranton

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().