Chen, Lakshminarayanan, and Santos (2006) claim to show in three choice experiments that monkeys react rationally to price and wealth shocks, but, when faced with gambles, display hallmark, human-like biases that include loss aversion. We present three experiments with monkeys and humans consistent with a reinterpretation of their data that attributes their results not to loss aversion, but to ...

Loss aversion has been used to explain why a high equity premium might be consistent with plausible levels of risk aversion. The intuition is that the different utility impact of wealth gains and losses leads loss-averse investors to behave similarly to investors with high risk aversion. But if so, should these agents not perceive larger gains from international diversification than standard ex...

Preference reversals are found in measurements of ambiguity aversion even under constant psychological and informational circumstances. The reversals are of a fundamentally different nature than the reversals found before because they cannot be explained by context-dependent weightings of attributes. We offer an explanation based on Sugden’s random-reference theory with different elicitation me...

A large body of experimental evidence suggests that people are loss averse. Inspired by this evidence, we develop a model in which a monopolist sells to loss averse, yet rational, consumers. We first introduce (portable) techniques for analyzing the demand of such consumers, and then investigate the monopolist's pricing strategy. In contrast to the standard monopoly model, we find that in relat...

We consider a slotted-ALOHA LAN with loss-averse, noncooperative greedy users. To avoid non-Pareto equilibria, particularly deadlock, we assume probabilistic loss-averse behavior. This behavior is modeled as a modulated white noise term, in addition to the greedy term, creating a diffusion process modeling the game. We observe that when player’s modulate with their throughput, a more efficient ...

We study risk taking on behalf of others, both when choices involve losses and when they do not. We conduct a large-scale incentivized experiment with subjects randomly drawn from the Danish population. On average, decision makers take the same risks for other people as for themselves when losses are excluded. In contrast, when losses are possible, decisions on behalf of others are more risky. ...

Losses are a possibility in many risky decisions, and organisms have evolved mechanisms to evaluate and avoid them. Laboratory and field evidence suggests that people often avoid risks with losses even when they might earn a substantially larger gain, a behavioral preference termed "loss aversion." The cautionary brake on behavior known to rely on the amygdala is a plausible candidate mechanism...

Myopic loss aversion (MLA) has been found to play a persistent role for investment behavior under risk. We study whether MLA is already present during adolescence. Quite surprisingly, we find no evidence of MLA in a sample of 755 adolescents. This finding is at odds with previous findings, and it might be explained by self-selection effects. In other dimensions, however, we are able to replicat...