Are experimental economists prone to framing effects? A natural field experiment

Abstract

"An extensive literature demonstrates the existence of framing effects in the laboratory and in questionnaire studies. This paper reports new evidence from a natural field experiment using a subject pool one might expect to be particularly resistant to such effects: experimental economists. We find that while the behaviour of junior experimental economists is affected by the description of the decision task they face, this is not the case for the more senior members of our subject pool." [author's abstract

A Description of Psychological Biases on the Currency Market

“…Despite the fact that the final result in both cases is the same, the majority of economic agents prefer to choose the first alternative, while the context is positive. A research by Kahneman-Tverski also provides for one more example to underline the importance of the context: 93% of students were registered on the course earlier, when the penalty with regard to late registration was emphasized, and where there was a discount for the early registration, the number of registered students was decreased to 67% (Gächter, Orzen, Renner, Stamer 2009).…”

Reforming Higher Education Finance in Turkey: The Alumni - Crowdfunded Student Debt Fund “A-CSDF” Model

“…In a study conducted by Gachter, Orzen, Renner, and Starmer (2009), 93% of PhD students registered early when the penalty fee for late registration was emphasized, with only 67% doing so when this was presented as a discount for earlier registration. The framing effect is reported by the authors to have consistently proven to be one of the strongest biases in decision-making.…”

Towards Leveraging Behavioral Economics in Mobile Application Design

“…Framing effects explain why people make inconsistent choices when their information is presented in different ways. For example, in an experiment by Gächter et al (2009) significantly more PhD students signed up for a conference early if the "fee will include a penalty for late registration" compared to when there was "discounted conference fee for early registration". We continue by shortly describing two exemplary dimensions of framing.…”