Varying reference-point salience

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Krumer, Alex, Otto, Felix, Pawlowski, Tim
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Krumer, Alex
Otto, Felix
Pawlowski, Tim
author_facet Krumer, Alex
Otto, Felix
Pawlowski, Tim
contents The salience of reference points may theoretically influence the loss aversion mechanism in effort provision. However, we still lack a direct test from real competitive settings that uses exogenous variation to measure the effect of salience. We exploit a natural experiment where highly professional and incentivized individuals perform in real competitive settings with exogenous variation of reference-point salience. While a relevant reference point is salient in some cases, it is obscured in others, which, under reasonable assumptions, may affect individuals' expectations. This enables us to examine the effect of reference-point salience on the loss aversion mechanism in effort provision. Our regression discontinuity analyses reveal that individuals with positive expectations outperform those with negative expectations, but only when the reference point is salient.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_13382
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Varying reference-point salience
Krumer, Alex
Otto, Felix
Pawlowski, Tim
General Economics
Economics
The salience of reference points may theoretically influence the loss aversion mechanism in effort provision. However, we still lack a direct test from real competitive settings that uses exogenous variation to measure the effect of salience. We exploit a natural experiment where highly professional and incentivized individuals perform in real competitive settings with exogenous variation of reference-point salience. While a relevant reference point is salient in some cases, it is obscured in others, which, under reasonable assumptions, may affect individuals' expectations. This enables us to examine the effect of reference-point salience on the loss aversion mechanism in effort provision. Our regression discontinuity analyses reveal that individuals with positive expectations outperform those with negative expectations, but only when the reference point is salient.
title Varying reference-point salience
topic General Economics
Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13382