Evidence increasingly points to the importance of reference-dependence in predicting consumer behavior. We utilize detailed data from penny auctions, which first appeared as an internet phenomenon in the late 2000's, to uncover how consumers' prior experiences predict their willingness to try a...

We investigate the relative merits of the Boston and Serial Dictatorship mechanisms when the timing of students' preference submission over schools varies within the structure of the mechanism. Despite the well-documented disadvantages of the Boston mechanism (Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez, 2003),...

How does an individual's position within a social distribution influence their desire to take risk? Reference-dependent loss aversion (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Koszegi and Rabin, 2006, 2007) adapted to a social setting, suggests that individuals may find risk more appealing when they are doing...

When interacting with others, individuals are often known to adjust their behavior based on the gender characteristics of the other person. Information about another person’s gender tends to influence both behavior towards that individual, as well as expectations about that individual’s...

How does an individual’s position within a social distribution influence their desire to take risk? Reference-dependent loss aversion (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Koszegi and Rabin, 2006, 2007) adapted to a social distribution setting, suggests that individuals could find risk more appealing at...

We propose a simple commitment mechanism prior to a public goods contribution game. Each player simultaneously and independently proposes a deduction rate, which serves as a proposal for the rate by which the return on private investment accounts will be reduced. The group deduction rate is...

Frequent online poker players with extensive experience calculating probabilities and expected values might be expected to behave as Expected Utility maximizers, in that small shocks to their wealth would not affect risk preferences (Rabin, 2000). By contrast, reference-dependent loss aversion...