Do Professionals Get It Right? Limited Attention and Risk‐taking Behaviour

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9708468
AutoresReto Foellmi (0000-0003-0462-6003, University of St.Gallen and CEPR), Stefan Legge (0000-0001-6968-2781, University of St.Gallen), Lisa Schmid (0000-0003-0746-1195, University of St.Gallen), Lukas Schmid (0000-0003-3980-1051, University of St.Gallen)
Año2016
Volumen126
Número592
Páginas724-755
Fecha de publicación2016-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Economic Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/ecoj.12375
OpenAlexW2400773516
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas50

Does information processing affect individual risk‐taking behaviour? This article provides evidence that professional athletes suffer from a left‐digit bias when dealing with signals about differences in performance. Using data from the highly competitive field of World Cup alpine skiing for the period of 1992–2014, we show that athletes misinterpret actual differences in race times by focusing on the leftmost digit, which results in increased risk‐taking behaviour. For the estimation of causal effects, we exploit the fact that tiny time differences can be attributed to random shocks. We find no evidence that high‐stakes situations or individual experience reduce the left‐digit bias

Affect (linguistics · Athletes · Cognitive psychology · Computer security · Econometrics · Economics · Exploit · Numerical digit · Race (biology · Sociology · Communication · Computer Science · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Mathematics · Medicine · Meta-analysis and systematic reviews · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sports Analytics and Performance