Probability Weighting in Choice under Risk: An Empirical Test

This paper reports a violation of rank-dependent utility with inverse S-shaped probability weighting for binary gambles. The paper starts with a violation of expected utility theory: one-stage gambles elicit systematically different utilities than theoretically equivalent two-stage gambles. This systematic disparity does not disappear, but becomes more pronounced after correction for inverse S-shaped probability weighting. The data are also inconsistent with configural weight theory and Machina''s fanning out hypothesis. Possible explanations for the data are loss aversion and anchoring and insufficient adjustment.

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