1. Belief elicitation in experiments: is there a hedging problem?
- Author
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Blanco, Mariana, Engelmann, Dirk, Koch, Alexander K., and Normann, Hans-Theo
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Experimental economics -- Analysis ,Hedging (Finance) -- Analysis ,Economics - Abstract
Byline: Mariana Blanco (1), Dirk Engelmann (2,3,4), Alexander K. Koch (5), Hans-Theo Normann (6,7) Keywords: Belief elicitation; Hedging; Experimental economics; Experimental methodology; C72; C90 Abstract: Belief-elicitation experiments usually reward accuracy of stated beliefs in addition to payments for other decisions. But this allows risk-averse subjects to hedge with their stated beliefs against adverse outcomes of the other decisions. So can we trust the existing belief-elicitation results? And can we avoid potential hedging confounds? We propose an experimental design that theoretically eliminates hedging opportunities. Using this design, we test for the empirical relevance of hedging effects in the lab. Our results suggest that hedging confounds are not a major problem unless hedging opportunities are very prominent. If hedging opportunities are transparent, and incentives to hedge are strong, many subjects do spot hedging opportunities and respond to them. The bias can go beyond players actually hedging themselves, because some expect others to hedge and best respond to this. Author Affiliation: (1) Economics Department, Universidad del Rosario, Calle 14 No. 4-80, Bogota, Colombia (2) Department of Economics, University of Mannheim, L7, 3-5, 68131, Mannheim, Germany (3) Centre for Experimental Economics, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark (4) Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic (5) School of Economics and Management, Aarhus University, Building 1322, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark (6) Dusseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), Dusseldorf University, 40225, Dusseldorf, Germany (7) Max-Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Germany Article History: Registration Date: 01/07/2010 Received Date: 22/05/2008 Accepted Date: 01/07/2010 Online Date: 22/07/2010 Article note: Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi: 10.1007/s10683-010-9249-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
- Published
- 2010