Decision Making Under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires *
Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2016 · Daniel L. Chen、Tobias J. Moskowitz、Kelly Shue
中文摘要
我们在三个独立且涉及重大利害的实地情境中——难民庇护法庭裁决、贷款申请审查以及美国职业棒球大联盟裁判对投球作出的好球或坏球判定——发现了一致的证据，表明决策存在负自相关，且这种负自相关与所审议个案的实际情况无关。证据最为支持的解释是，小数定律和赌徒谬误——即人们低估了同类结果连续出现纯属偶然的可能性——导致决策呈现负自相关，并由此造成错误。负自相关在以下情形下更强：决策者更为温和、经验较少；此前同一方向的决策连续出现得更久；当前个案与前一个案具有相似特征或发生时间相近；以及决策者面临的准确性激励较弱。其他有关决策负自相关的解释，如配额、学习或公平对待各方的偏好，与证据的吻合程度较低，不过我们无法完全排除序列对比效应这一替代解释。
Abstract
Abstract We find consistent evidence of negative autocorrelation in decision making that is unrelated to the merits of the cases considered in three separate high-stakes field settings: refugee asylum court decisions, loan application reviews, and Major League Baseball umpire pitch calls. The evidence is most consistent with the law of small numbers and the gambler’s fallacy—people underestimating the likelihood of sequential streaks occurring by chance—leading to negatively autocorrelated decisions that result in errors. The negative autocorrelation is stronger among more moderate and less experienced decision makers, following longer streaks of decisions in one direction, when the current and previous cases share similar characteristics or occur close in time, and when decision makers face weaker incentives for accuracy. Other explanations for negatively autocorrelated decisions such as quotas, learning, or preferences to treat all parties fairly are less consistent with the evidence, though we cannot completely rule out sequential contrast effects as an alternative explanation.