Prospect theory in the wild: how good is the nonexperimental evidence for prospect theory?

ABSTRACT

Prospect theory is widely thought to be one of the best-confirmed accounts of human decision-making under risk. There are numerous claims in the literature that various kinds of nonexperimental, observational evidence provide strong support for prospect theory. We investigate the veracity of these claims using a set of philosophy of science morals and a careful delineation of models of choice under risk, focussing on the extant versions of prospect theory and their various components. We challenge the claim that prospect theory is well supported because it explains the equity premium puzzle. In addition, we analyse a major international survey thought to support prospect theory and argue that the support is questionable, both for statistical reasons and because the evidence itself is mixed. Our analyses highlight some important ideas in the philosophy of science and caution against strong claims about support for prospect theory that rely on nonexperimental, observational evidence.     

迁移理论的基础:“理解人口学”的分析框架

根据学者布如金所提出的人口理论研究新范式,在对其进行概括和拓展的基础上,提出了“理解人口学”的分析框架。同时综合部分迁移研究的成果,融合不同研究方法,从四个层次:迁移行为的概念假设、迁移行为的发端、迁移行为的外部环境和迁移行为的时间纬度,为人口迁移行为分析提供了-个跨学科的研究视野。     

The Effect of Respondent Experience/Knowledge in the Elicitation of Contingent Values: An Investigation of Convergent Validity,Procedural Invariance and Reliability

Tests of convergent validity and procedural invariance were used to investigate whether individuals lacking direct experience with a commodity can provide valid responses to contingent-valuation questions eliciting ex post use values. Convergent validity between samples with and without experience was shown to hold for dichotomous-choice responses, but not for open-ended responses.     

Candidate stability and nonbinary social choice

Summary. The requirement that a voting procedure be immune to the strategic withdrawal of a candidate for election can be formalized in different ways. Dutta, Jackson, and Le Breton (Econometrica, 2001) have recently shown that two formalizations of this candidate stability property are incompatible with some other desirable properties of voting procedures. This article shows that Grether and Plott's nonbinary generalization of Arrow's Theorem can be used to provide simple proofs of two of their impossibility theorems. Received: August 15, 2001; revised version: March 11, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" Parts of this article were previously circulated in somewhat different form in a working paper with the same title by the second author. We are grateful to Michel Le Breton and an anonymous referee for their comments. Correspondence to:J.A. Weymark     

企业技术创新战略选择机制问题的研究

技术创新战略的选择对企业有着深远影响,甚至关系到企业的生存。如何建立有效的技术创新战略选择机制一直是困扰企业的难题。把企业技术创新战略选择机制的重点放在企业比较容易测度、使用的方法上来,对企业技术创新进行较为细致的风险估计、战略选择的博弈分析,并介绍了Logistic生长模型,为企业选择技术创新战略提供了便利的分析工具。     

社区商业文化价值的开发

社区商业文化产生于社区商业细致入微的服务及相对稳定的服务对象两者之间积极互动的过程。社区商业经营活动的过程就是社区商业文化形成的过程。质优价宜的商品、全面细致的服务、社区活动的参与和促销宣传活动的结合,强化了社区网点与社区居民之间的亲和关系。充分发挥社区商业文化吸引消费、引导消费的价值,必须从战略的高度对待选址、服务配套、人员配备、参与社区建设等经营管理的问题。     

Planning Your Own Debt

We model the Danish market for mortgage backed securities with a two-factor interest rate model and use a stochastic programming approach to analyse how an individual home-owner should initially compose and subsequently readjust his mortgage in an optimal way. Results show that the 'rules of thumb' used by financial institutions are reasonable, although best suited for more aggressive mortgagors, for whom the delivery option is of some value. More risk-averse investors should also re-adjust frequently, but use more diversified portfolios. Results are insensitive to whether a one- or two-factor model is used, provided the former is suitably calibrated.     

Locally Greater Vulnerability to Background Risk

Willingness to take on risk is influenced by the presence of fair and unfair background risks for decision makers who are risk vulnerable as defined by Gollier and Pratt [1996], for these decision makers are more risk averse when they possess such an uninsurable background risk. We present an alternative derivation of the index of local vulnerability based on Diamond and Stiglitz [1974] compensated increases in risk, such that risk aversion increases with the introduction of any small fair background risk if and only if the index of local vulnerability is positive. We establish that the increase in risk aversion is greater for those who are more vulnerable as measured by the index of local vulnerability.     

Behavioral Public Finance: Tax Design as Price Presentation

In this essay we review the evidence from marketing research about price presentation of consumer products and discuss how these lessons have been applied—consciously or unconsciously—in the design of the U.S. tax system. Our perspective is that, in most situations, the designers of the tax system attempt to minimize the perceived burden of any given amount of tax collections. We allow, though, that in certain situations an additional goal is to maximize the perceived burden of others. We also investigate how, when the objective is to encourage a particular activity, price presentation may enhance the achievement of that goal for a given amount of tax subsidy. We conclude by addressing the ethical and normative implications of price presentation in the tax system.     

Traders’ choice between limit and market orders: evidence from NYSE stocks

In this paper, we examine a trader's order choice between market and limit orders using a sample of orders submitted through NYSE SuperDot. We find that traders place more limit orders relative to market orders when: (1) the spread is large, (2) the order size is large, and (3) they expect high transitory price volatility. A rise in informational volatility appears neither to increase nor decrease the placement of limit orders. We also find that a rise in lagged price volatility decreases the size of spread, which is driven by the increase in the placement of limit orders.