One Swallow Doesn't Make a Summer: New Evidence on Anchoring Effects
Open accessAbstract
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. (JEL D12, C91)
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Concerns about inflated findings in empirical and experimental economics have been raised.
“In economics, concerns about inflated findings in empirical ( 9 ) and experimental analysis ( 10 , 11 ) have also been raised.”
From Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics (2016) · cites this paper as [11]
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Camerer, C. F., Dreber, A., Holzmeister, F., Ho, T.-H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Nave, G., Nosek, B. A., Pfeiffer, T., et al. (2018) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0399-z · Cited by 1,521 · see citing works
Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics
Camerer, C. F., Dreber, A., Forsell, E., Ho, T.-H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Almenberg, J., Altmejd, A., Chan, T., et al. (2016) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aaf0918 · Cited by 1,314 · see citing works
The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance
Hallsworth, M., List, J. A., Metcalfe, R. D., & Vlaev, I. (2017) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.02.003 · Cited by 764 · see citing works
Self-citationUsing prediction markets to estimate the reproducibility of scientific research
Dreber, A., Pfeiffer, T., Almenberg, J., Isaksson, S., Wilson, B., Chen, Y., Nosek, B. A., & Johannesson, M. (2015) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1516179112 · Cited by 331 · see citing works
- Authors
- Maniadis, Z., Tufano, F., & List, J. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Southampton (GB)
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- University of Chicago (US)
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2014-01-01
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 277-290
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2056125794
- Cited by
- 280
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 9
- FWCI
- 15.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Nottingham ePrints (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion)
- Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Financial Markets and Investment Strategies
- Keywords
- anchoring effect, economic valuation, preference consistency, false positives, statistical power, replication, reproducibility
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