PhD Lunch Seminars Rotterdam

Speaker(s)
Tong Wang (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Date
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Location
Rotterdam

We choose among numbers in many choice situations. Although one might expect the taste for numbers per se to play no role of significance, it has been found to affect decisions such that they change real economic outcomes. We hence explore number preferences using two large proprietary datasets. The first contains more than 5 million choice combinations of Dutch lottery; the second more than 500 thousand choice combinations predicting 4 consecutive Roulette draws for a two-time event. In the two samples we observe similar preferences for specific numbers and for combinations of numbers. Our findings indicate that simple labels can influence choice, and further support a growing literature that points out that the presentation of choice options matters.