The empirical relationship between nonstandard economic behaviors

Abstract

We study the joint distribution of 11 behavioral phenomena in a group of 190 laboratory subjects and compare it to the predictions of existing models as a step in the development of a parsimonious, general model of economic choice. We find strong correlations between most measures of risk and time preference, between compound lottery and ambiguity aversion, and between loss aversion and the endowment effect. Our results support some, but not all attempts to unify behavioral economic phenomena. Overconfidence and gender are also predictive of some behavioral characteristics.