Journal of Economic Literature Vol. 62 No. 2 2024

Meta-analysis of Empirical Estimates of Loss Aversion

Alexander L. Brown¹; Taisuke Imai²; Ferdinand M. Vieider³; Colin F. Camerer⁴

¹ Department of Economics, Texas A&M University · ² Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University · ³ RISLαß, Department of Economics, Ghent University and RISLαß Africa, AIRESS, University Mohammed VI Polytechnic. · ⁴ Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology

Abstract

Loss aversion is one of the most widely used concepts in behavioral economics. We conduct a large-scale, interdisciplinary meta-analysis to systematically accumulate knowledge from numerous empirical estimates of the loss aversion coefficient reported from 1992 to 2017. We examine 607 empirical estimates of loss aversion from 150 articles in economics, psychology, neuroscience, and several other disciplines. Our analysis indicates that the mean loss aversion coefficient is 1.955 with a 95 percent probability that the true value falls in the interval [1.820, 2.102]. We record several observable characteristics of the study designs. Few characteristics are substantially correlated with differences in the mean estimates.

DOI

10.1257/jel.20221698

Volume

62

Issue

2

Pages

485-516

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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