Anchoring in Bargaining

Last registered on December 17, 2018

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Anchoring in Bargaining
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003091
Initial registration date
June 17, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
July 09, 2018, 2:34 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
December 17, 2018, 7:35 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Maastricht University/Faculty of Economics and Business/Department of Economics AE1

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
NHH

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2018-06-18
End date
2019-04-01
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Anchoring in Bargaining
We will study whether anchoring affects decisions in bargaining situations
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Haan, Thomas and Jona Linde. 2018. "Anchoring in Bargaining." AEA RCT Registry. December 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3091-3.0
Former Citation
Haan, Thomas and Jona Linde. 2018. "Anchoring in Bargaining." AEA RCT Registry. December 17. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3091/history/39022
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2018-06-18
Intervention End Date
2019-02-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Offers made by proposers in the experimental bargaining game
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We manipulate the level of anchors in a bargaining game.
Experimental Design Details
In the experiments participants will be matched in groups of 3, getting assigned the roles of either Retailer 1, Retailer 2 or producer. There will be 4 treatments named 'baseline', 'random anchor', 'strategic anchor' and 'signaling anchor'. In all treatments there is a random retail price, drawn from a uniform distribution running from 600 to 1100, and a random producer costs drawn from a uniform distribution running from 200 to 600. In all treatments participants need to agree on how to redistribute the (potential) surplus, the difference between the retail price and the producer costs. In case of disagreement all three participants earn 0, in case of agreement the producer gets the price minus her production costs. The retailers split the difference between the retail price and the price equally. .

Treatments

In the 'baseline treatment', the producer must choose a price between 0 and 1100. Subsequently retailer 1 has to decide whether or not to accept the price. Although affected by the choices of the other participants, retailer 2 will make no active decisions.

In the 'random anchor' treatment all procedures are similar to the baseline except for one detail. Before the producer makes her decision on the price, a computer first draws a random integer number R from a uniform distribution ranging from 0 to 1100. Participant A is shown the random number R and is asked whether she is planning to choose a price above or below that number. After answering this question the producer continues as in the baseline by choosing a price Neither the random number R, nor the question response by the producer will be communicated to retailers 1 and 2 and this is common knowledge. Subsequently the price will be communicated to retailer 1, who rejects or accepts.

In the 'strategic anchor' treatment the procedures are again similar to those in the baseline except for the following. Before the producer makes her decision on the price, retailer 2 has to choose an integer number R with R\in\left[0,1100\right]. After this, the producer is shown the chosen number R and is asked whether she is planning to choose a price above or below R. After answering this question the producer continues as in the baseline by choosing a price Neither the anchoring number R, nor the question response by the producer will be communicated to either of the retailers and this is common knowledge. Subsequently the value of the price will be communicated to retailer 1, who rejects or accepts.

In the 'signalling anchor' the procedures are exactly similar to those in the 'strategic anchor' treatment, except that this time the anchor number R will be chosen by retailer 1 instead of retailer 2, so in this treatment retailer 2 is again a passive participant.
Randomization Method
Done by computer in the laboratory
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
About 135 groups of three participants
Sample size: planned number of observations
About 135, each cluster is one independent observation
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
35 per treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We did not perform a power calculation because It is hard to assess what the difference in the anchoring effect between treatments will be and the pilot does not provide sufficient information to be certain what size of effect we can identify. Even more so because there is uncertainty about the variance in anchors that will be chosen by retailers.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials