Eliciting probabilities, means, medians, variances and covariances without assuming risk neutrality

We are interested in incentivizing experimental subjects to report their beliefs truthfully, without imposing assumptions on their risk preferences. We prove that if subjects are not risk neutral, it is not possible to elicit subjective probabilities or the mean of a subjective probability distribution truthfully using deterministic payments schemes, which are predominant in the literature. We present a simple randomization trick that transforms deterministic rewards into randomized rewards, such that agents with arbitrary risk preferences report as if they were risk neutral. Using this trick, we show how to elicit probabilities, means, medians, variances and covariances of the underlying distribution without assuming risk neutrality

A method to elicit beliefs as most likely intervals

We show how to elicit the beliefs of an expert in the form of a "most likely interval", a set of future outcomes that are deemed more likely than any other outcome. Our method, called the Most Likely Interval elicitation rule (MLI), asks the expert for an interval and pays according to how well the answer compares to the actual outcome. We show that the MLI performs well in economic experiments, and satisfies a number of desirable theoretical properties such as robustness to the risk preferences of the expert

Peer effects and risk sharing in experimental asset markets

We investigate the effect of introducing information about peer portfolios in an experimental Arrow–Debreu economy. Confirming the prediction of a general equilibrium model with inequality averse preferences, we find that peer information leads to reduced variation in payoffs within peer groups. Information also improves risk sharing, as the data suggests that experiencing earnings deviations from peers induces a shift to more balanced portfolios. In a treatment where we highlight the highest earner, we observe a reduction in risk sharing, while highlighting the lowest earner has no effects compared to providing neutral information. Our results indicate that the presence of social information and its framing is an important determinant of equilibrium in financial markets