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Encyclopedia of Law and Economics pp 727–733Cite as

Endowment Effect

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Abstract

A vast body of experimental studies in psychology and economics finds that individuals tend to value goods more and demand higher prices when they own the goods than they would be willing to pay for the good when they do not already own it. Although research on the endowment effect has been done for more than three decades, it’s theory, empirical methodology, results, and implications continue to be topics of intense discussion among economists, lawyers and psychologists. In this entry, we review the theoretical framework and empirical evidence on the endowment effect and highlight some implications for law and economics research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hastings College of the Law, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Ben Depoorter

  2. Center for Advanced Studies in Law and Economics (CASLE), Ghent University Law School, Ghent, Belgium

    Ben Depoorter & Sven Hoeppner

Authors
  1. Ben Depoorter
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  2. Sven Hoeppner
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ben Depoorter or Sven Hoeppner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. MRE and University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  2. Faculté d’Economie, Université de Montpellier and LAMETA-UMR CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  3. DiGSPES, University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

  4. IEL, Torino, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

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Depoorter, B., Hoeppner, S. (2019). Endowment Effect. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_545

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