SMU SOE Seminar (Aug 7, 2019): Loss Attitudes in the U.S. Population: Evidence from Dynamically Optimized Sequential Experimentation (DOSE)

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ABSTRACT To measure individual-level loss aversion in a representative sample of the U.S. population (N = 2,000), we introduce DOSE—Dynamically Optimized Sequential Experimentation. We ﬁnd that around 50% of the U.S. population is loss tolerant. This is counter to earlier ﬁndings, which mostly come from lab/student samples, that a strong majority of participants are loss averse. Loss attitudes are correlated with cognitive ability: loss aversion is more prevalent in people with high cognitive ability, and loss tolerance is more common in those with low cognitive ability. We also use DOSE to document facts about risk and time preferences, and demonstrate that DOSE elicitations are more accurate, more stable across time, and faster to administer than standard methods. Keywords: Loss aversion, dynamic experiments, DOSE, risk preferences, time preferences. JEL Codes: C81, C9, D03, D81, D9. Click here to view the paper. Click here to view the CV.
		PRESENTER Erik Snowberg University of British Columbia
		RESEARCH FIELDS Political Economics Behavioral Economics Experimental Design
		DATE: 7 August 2019 (Wednesday)
		TIME: 4pm - 5.30pm
		VENUE: Meeting Room 5.1, Level 5 School of Economics Singapore Management University 90 Stamford Road Singapore 178903