Intuition and Reasoning in Choosing Ambiguous and Risky Lotteries

Arbeitspapier

This paper focuses on information acquisition and individual decision making in ambiguous situations and presents a novel experimental design which may help to tackle open questions from a fresh perspective. Instead of giving subjects the choice between risky and ambiguous Ellsberg urns, we let them choose between a safe option and a risky lottery, whose risk is a priori unknown to subjects. By acquiring information about the probability distribution of the lottery's payoff s, subjects can reduce or even eliminate the ambiguity and turn the decision situation into one of risk. Under the assumption that an ambiguity averse subject should reduce ambiguity within a decision process we predicted that these subjects would request more information. Moreover, we investigate whether the relation between attitudes towards risk and ambiguity is linked to intuitive and deliberate thinking. Based on a detailed analysis of subjects' information acquisition and decision processes we do not find that those subjects showing ambiguity aversion in an urn experiment based on Halevy (2007) significantly reduce the ambiguity more than others. More intuitive subjects acquire less information and are more likely to avoid the risky lottery. Intuition seems to be negatively correlated with risk aversion, but not with ambiguity aversion. Moreover, we find a positive correlation between risk and ambiguity aversion.

Angaben zum Objekt

• ISBN: 978-3-86788-497-6
• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Ruhr Economic Papers ; No. 440

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
• Thema: ambiguity aversion ; risk aversion ; uncertainty ; experiment ; decision making ; binary system of thinking

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Bergheim, Ralf ; Roos, Michael W. M.
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI)
• (wo): Essen
• (wann): 2013

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.4419/86788497
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/83675
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ