Bidding for nothing?: the pitfalls of overly neutral framing
Neutral framing is a standard tool of experimental economics. However, overly neutral instructions, which lack any contextual clues, can lead to strange behaviour. In a contextless second-price auction for a meaningless good, a majority of subjects enter positive bids - likely a case of cognitive ex...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2017
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| In: |
Applied economics letters
Year: 2016, Volume: 24, Issue: 13, Pages: 932-935 |
| ISSN: | 1466-4291 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, Volltext: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337 Verlag, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337 
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| Author Notes: | Peter Duersch & Julia Müller |
| Summary: | Neutral framing is a standard tool of experimental economics. However, overly neutral instructions, which lack any contextual clues, can lead to strange behaviour. In a contextless second-price auction for a meaningless good, a majority of subjects enter positive bids - likely a case of cognitive experimenter demand effect. Subjects may interpret the lack of context as being tasked with bidding in the experiment. Adding another auction that has a context drastically reduces the positive bids in the meaningless auction. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 26.09.2018 Published online: 12 Oct 2016 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1466-4291 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337 |