American Economic Review Vol. 104 No. 1 2014

One Swallow Doesn't Make a Summer: New Evidence on Anchoring Effects

Zacharias Maniadis¹; Fabio Tufano²; John A. List³

¹ Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK (e-mail: ) · ² CeDEx, School of Economics, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK (e-mail: ) · ³ Department of Economics, University of Chicago, 1126 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 (e-mail: )

Abstract

Some researchers have argued that anchoring in economic valuations casts doubt on the assumption of consistent and stable preferences. We present new evidence that explores the strength of certain anchoring results. We then present a theoretical framework that provides insights into why we should be cautious of initial empirical findings in general. The model importantly highlights that the rate of false positives depends not only on the observed significance level, but also on statistical power, research priors, and the number of scholars exploring the question. Importantly, a few independent replications dramatically increase the chances that the original finding is true.

DOI

10.1257/aer.104.1.277

Volume

104

Issue

1

Pages

277-290

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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