Endowment effect in Latin America: experimental evidence

Authors

  • Enrique Manzur Universidad de Chile
  • Sergio Olavarrieta Universidad de Chile
  • Pedro Hidalgo Universidad de Chile
  • Pablo Farías Universidad de Chile

Abstract

Authors from several disciplines - decision sciences, management, marketing, behavioral economics - have documented the existence of anomalies to the standard rational model of human behavior. Among several anomalies, the endowment effect is a key finding of this previous research. Few studies have explored the endowment effect in developing countries. This study reports the results of an experiment conducted in Chile to empirically analyze the endowment effect. Findings are consistent with previous international evidence suggesting that ownership itself produces value to consumers (and decision makers). Implications for marketing, management, business education and policy making practices are briefly presented.

Keywords:

Endowment Effect, Quasi-rational behavior, Decision, Consumer Behavior

References

Allais, M. (1953). Le comportament de l’homme rationnel devant le risqué, critique des postulats et axioms del’ecole americaine, Econometrica, 21, 503-546.

Arkes, H., C. Joyner, M. Pezzo, J. Nash, K. Jacobs & E. Stone. (1995). The psychology of windfall gains, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 59, 331-347

Ariely, D. (2008), Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions, New York: Harper Collins.

Ariely, D. & I. Simonson (2003). Buying, Bidding, Playing, or Competing? Value Assessment ad Decision Dynamics in Online Auctions, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13(1), 113-123.

Barberis, N., M. Huang & T. Santos (2001). Prospect Theory and asset prices, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(1), 1-53.

Bar-Hillel, Maya & Efrat Neter (1996). Why are people reluctant to exchange lottery tickets?, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70 (January), 17-27.

Beggan, J. (1992). On the social nature of non-social perception: The mere ownership effect, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 229-237.

Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the Extended Self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15 (2), 139-168.

Bernoulli, D. (1738). Specimen Theoriae Novae de Mensura Sortis. En Commentarii Academiae Scientarium Imperialis Petropolitanae, Tomus V, 175-192. Traducido por L. Sommer (1954) como Exposition of a new theory of the measurement of risk, Econometrica, 22, 23-26.

Camerer, C. (2000), Prospect Theory in the wild in Choices, Values and Frames. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (Eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 288-300.

Carmon, Z. & Ariely, D. (2000), Focusing on the forgone: how value can appear so different to buyers and sellers, Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 360-370.

Carmon, Z., K. Wertenbroch, & M. Zeelenberg (2003). Option attachment: when deliberating makes choosing feel like losing, Journal of Consumer Research, 30 (June), 15-29.

Chapman, G. (1998). Similarity and Reluctance to Trade, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 11(March), 47-58.

Dhar, R. & K. Wertenbroch (2000). Consumer choice between hedonic and utilitarian goods, Journal of Marketing Research, 37 (February), 60-71.

Fastoso, F. & Whitelock, J. (2011).Why is so little marketing research on Latin America published in high quality journals and what can we do about it? : Lessons from a Delphi study of authors who have succeeded, International Marketing Review, 28 (4), 435 – 449.

Fernández, D., D. Carlson, L. Stepina & J. Nicholson (1997), Hofstede ́s Country Classification, 25 years later, The Journal of Social Psychology, Washington, 137, 43-55.

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Perterson & Company.

Furche, A. & D. Johnstone. (2006). Evidence of the endowment effect in stock market order placement, Journal of Behavioral Finance, 7(3), 145-154.

Hanemann, W. (1991). Willingness to pay and willingness to accept: how much can they differ?, American Economic Review, 81(3), 635-647.

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.

Hitsch, G. J, Hortaccsu, A., & Dan Ariely (2010). What makes you click? Mate preferences in online dating. Quantitative Marketing and Economics 8 (4), 393-427.

Hofstede, G. (1980), Culture ́s Consequences: International Differences in work-related values, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Horowitz, J. & K. McConnell (2002). A review of WTA/WTP Studies, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 44, 426-447.

Huck, S., G. Kirchsteiger & J. Oechssler (2005). Learning to like what you have – Explaining the endowment effect, Economic Journal, 115 (July), 689-702.

Kahneman, D. (2003b). Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics, American Economic Review, 93 (5), 1449-1475.

Kahneman, D. (2003a). A Psychological Perspective on Economics, AEA Papers and Proceedings, 93 (2), 162-168.

Kahneman, D. (1992). Reference Points, Anchors, Norms, and Mixed Feelings, Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 51 (2), 296-312.

Kahneman, D. & Krueger, A. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20 (1), 3-24.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1984). Choices, values and frames. American Psychologist,39, 341-350.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979), Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk, Econometrica, 47 (2), 263-292.

Kahneman, D. Knetsch, J.L. & R. H. Thaler (1991), Anomalies: the endowment effect, loss aversion, and status quo bias, Journal of Economic perspectives, 5 (1), 193-206.

Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L. & R.H. Thaler (1990), Experimental test of endowment effect and the Coase theorem, Journal of Political Economy, 98 (6), 1325-1348.

Keeler, J., W. James & M. Abdel-Ghany (1985). The relative size of windfall income and the permanent income hypothesis, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 3, 209-215

Knetsch, J. L. (1989). The endowment effect and evidence of non-reversible indifferences curves, American Economic review, 79 (5), 1277-1284.

Knetsch, J.L. & Sinden, J.A. (1984), Willingness to pay and compensation demanded: experimental evidence of an unexpected disparity in measures in value, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 99 (3), 507-521.

Lerner, J., D. Small & G. Loewenstein (2004). Heart Strings and Purse Strings. Carryover Effects of Emotions on Economic Decisions, Psychological Science, 15(5), 337-341.

Levin, I., J. Schereiber, M. Lauriola & G. Gaeth (2002). A tale of two pizzas, Marketing Letters, 13 (November), 335-345.

List, J. (2003). Does market experience eliminate market anomalies?, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1), 41-71.

List, J. (2004). Neoclassical Theory versus Prospect Theory: Evidence from the Marketplace. Econometrica, 72 (2), 615-625.

Loomes, G., C. Starmer & R. Sugden (2003). Do anomalies disappear in repeated markets?, Economic Journal, 113 (March), 153-166.

Mackenzie, C. (1997). Where are the motives? A problem with evidence in the work of Richard Thaler, Journal of Economic Psychology, 18 (1), 123-135.

Maddux, W.M., Yang, H., Falk, C., Adam, H., Adair, W., Endo, Y., Carmon, Z., & S. Heine (2010). For whom is parting with possessions more painful? Cultural differences in the endowment effect. Psychological Science, 30 (December), 15-29: DOI: 10.1177/0956797610388818

Mandel, D. (2002). Beyond mere ownership: transaction demand as a moderator of the endowment effect, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 88, 737-747.

Manzur, E., Olavarrieta, S., Hidalgo, P. & Farías, P. Endowment Effect in Latin America: An Experiment (2014). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2620975 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2620975

Markowitz, H. (1952). The utility of wealth, Journal of Political Economy, 60, 151-158.

McDaniels, T. (1992). Reference points, loss aversion, and contingent values for auto safety, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 5 (2), 187-200.

Morrison, G. (1998). Understanding the disparity between WTP and WTA: endowment effect, substitutability, or imprecise preferences?, Economics Letters, 59(2), 189-194.

Nayakankuppam, D. & H. Mishra. (2005). The endowment effect: Rose-Tinted and Dark-Tinted Glasses, Journal of Consumer Research, 32, 390-395

Nicholls-Nixon, C. L.; Castilla, J.A.D.; García, J. S. & M. R. Pesqera, (2011) Latin American Management Research: Review, Synthesis and Extension. Journal of Management, 37 (4), 1178-1227. 2011.

Olavarrieta, S. (2001). Aspectos Metodológicos en la Investigación Cross-Cultural. Academia-Revista Latinoamericana de Administración, 26, 55-78.

Olavarrieta, S. & M. Villena (2014) Innovation and Business Research in Latin America: An Overview. Journal of Business Research 67 (4), 489-497. 2014.

Novemsky, N. & D. Kahneman (2005). The boundaries of loss aversion, Journal of Marketing Research, 42 (May), 119-128.

Plott, C. & K. Zeiler (2005). The Willingness to Pay-Willingness to Accept Gap, the “Endowment Effect,” Subject misconceptions, and experimental procedures for eliciting valuations, American Economic Review, 95 (3), 530-545.

Rottenstreich, Y. & C. Hsee (2001). Money, Kisses, and Electric Shocks: On the Affective Psychology of Risk, Psychological Science, 12(3), 185-190.

Ryan, M. & C. Ubach (2003). Testing for an experience endowment effect in health care, Applied Economics Letters, 10, 407-410.

Sen, S. & J. Johnson (1997). Mere-Possession effects without possession in Consumer Choice, Journal of Consumer Research, 24(1), 105-117.

Shogren, J., Shin, S., Hayes, D. & Kliebenstein, J. (1994).Resolving differences in willingness to pay and willingness to accept, American Economic Review, 84(1), 255-270.

Simonson, I. & A. Drolet (2004). Anchoring Effects on Consumers’ Willingness to-Pay and Willingness-to-Accept, Journal of Consumer Research, 31(December), 681-690.

Strahilevitz, M. & G. Loewenstein (1998). The effect of ownership history on the valuation of objects, Journal of Consumer Research, 25(3), 276-289.

Thaler, R. (1987), The psychology of choice and the assumptions of economics, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Thaler, R. (1980), Toward a positive theory of consumer choice, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 1, 39-60.

Thaler, R. & E. Johnson (1990). Gambling with the house money and trying to break even: the effects of prior outcomes on risky choice, Management Science, 36, 643-660

Thaler, R. & Cass R. Sunstein (2008), Nudge:Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, New York: Penguin Books.

Thorndike, R. (1920). Intelligence and Its Uses, Harper’s Magazine, 140, 227-335.

Tom, G., C. Nelson, T. Srzentic & R. King. (2007). Mere exposure and the endowment effect on consumer decision making, Journal of Psychology, 141(2), 117-125.

Van Dijk, E. & D. van Knippenberg (1998). Trading wine: on the endowment effect, loss aversion, and the comparability of consumer goods, Journal of Economic Psychology, 19(4), 485-495.

Zhang, Y. & A. Fishbach (2005). The role of anticipated emotions in the endowment effect, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(4), 316-324