The disposition effect in farmers’ selling behavior: an experimental investigation
通过在线实验发现德国农民在销售储存农产品时存在处置效应，即过早卖出盈利商品而持有亏损商品，且损失厌恶程度越高的农民越倾向于实现盈利。
Abstract The identification of the optimal selling time of stored goods is among the most essential economic decisions on a farm. Beyond monetary aspects, behavioral factors influence farmers’ selling decisions. In financial economics, the disposition effect is a commonly observed phenomenon. It describes the fact that investors hold losing stocks too long, while they sell stocks that gained in value too early. In the context of agriculture, this behavioral bias has not been analyzed thoroughly yet. To close this research gap, we conducted an incentivized online experiment with 112 farmers from Germany. The experimental design was based on a well‐proven experiment from financial economics and adapted to an agricultural decision context where stored goods must be sold. Farmers were provided information on the uncertain price developments. In addition, lotteries were conducted to elicit farmers’ risk attitude, probability weighting, and loss aversion. Results indicate that there is a robust disposition effect in farmers’ selling behavior. Furthermore, more loss‐averse farmers exhibited a higher realization of gains.