Risk-taking Strategies: Experimental Evidence

Last registered on November 08, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Risk-taking Strategies: Experimental Evidence
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009684
Initial registration date
November 08, 2022

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
November 08, 2022, 3:55 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Maximilian Voigt
Affiliation
Frankfurt School
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Sebastian Ebert
PI Affiliation
University of Heidelberg
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-11-10
End date
2023-12-31
Keywords
Behavior
Additional Keywords
Risk-taking; Behavioral stopping; Dynamic consistency
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We conduct an experiment to study individual repeated risk-taking behavior, both under pre-commitment and sequentially. In particular, we elicit each subject’s unconstrained risk-taking strategy, that is, the completely contingent plan of taking a risk several times. In addition to time- and outcome-dependent risk-taking, we allow a subset of the subjects to make risk-taking path-dependent or conditional on an exogenous randomization device.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Ebert, Sebastian and Maximilian Voigt. 2022. "Risk-taking Strategies: Experimental Evidence." AEA RCT Registry. November 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9684-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2022-11-10
Intervention End Date
2023-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Individuals’ risk-taking strategies and sequential risk-taking behavior.
Details are given in the Pre-Analysis Plan.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The individual risk-taking experiment is conducted online. Each subject completes eleven tasks. In the first task, using a new interactive tool, each subject submits her risk-taking strategy (i.e., his / her completely contingent plan for taking a risk for up to five times). The second part of the experiment consists of ten tasks. In each of these tasks, subjects sequentially decide whether to take (another) risk depending on how the previous risks turned out.

We simultaneously implement five between-subject studies by varying the (behavior) options available to the subjects. In study Basic, subjects can stop or continue risk-taking at any node, i.e., we allow for time- and outcome-dependent risk-taking. Subjects assigned to studies Path-dependence and Path-dependenceC can additionally condition their risk-taking behavior at a given node on the paths taken to that node; and subjects in studies Randomization and RandomizationC can use an independent randomization device to stop risk-taking with a probability of their choice. It is costly to use path-dependence or randomization in studies Path-dependenceC and RandomizationC, respectively.

Section 2 of the Pre-Analysis Plan gives a comprehensive description of the experimental design.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization using a computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
400 subjects.
Sample size: planned number of observations
400 subjects.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
80 subjects per study.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
German Association for Experimental Economics Research e.V. (GfeW)
IRB Approval Date
2022-11-07
IRB Approval Number
pzbrgbbQ
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