Expecting offers to exploit your uncertainty about a commodity’s value doesn’t immediately induce a WTP-WTA gap because you could be symmetrically cautious and avoid paying $5 for the shiny card when offered.
Someone offering to buy my cad for $5 suggests its value is above $5. Someone accepting my offer to buy their card for $5 suggests that the card is worth less than $5. Even if I value the card at $5, I suspect I am not getting market value for it if I am uncertain of the price and someone accepts my offer (either to buy or to sell). I might compensate by having WTP of $4 and WTA of $6. It’s exactly this symmetric cautiousness that seems to induce a WTP-WTA gap.
This is the thesis of a later paper by Plott and Zeiler, and AFAIK (haven’t read it), they do new experiments and find evidence for it and against the endowment effect theory. The economist covered it here.
Expecting offers to exploit your uncertainty about a commodity’s value doesn’t immediately induce a WTP-WTA gap because you could be symmetrically cautious and avoid paying $5 for the shiny card when offered.
Someone offering to buy my cad for $5 suggests its value is above $5. Someone accepting my offer to buy their card for $5 suggests that the card is worth less than $5. Even if I value the card at $5, I suspect I am not getting market value for it if I am uncertain of the price and someone accepts my offer (either to buy or to sell). I might compensate by having WTP of $4 and WTA of $6. It’s exactly this symmetric cautiousness that seems to induce a WTP-WTA gap.
This is the thesis of a later paper by Plott and Zeiler, and AFAIK (haven’t read it), they do new experiments and find evidence for it and against the endowment effect theory. The economist covered it here.