Misconceptions and Game Form Recognition of the BDM Method: Challenges to Theories of Revealed Preference and Framing

Abstract

This study explores the tension between the standard economic theory of preference and non-standard theories of preference that are motivated by an underlying theory of framing. A simple experiment was performed to measure a known preference, the value of a card that can be exchanged for $2 cash. The measurement does not produce the known preference and instead reports a preference that has properties often cited in support of non-standard preference theories and framing. Close examination reveals that the divergence of the measured preference from the known preference reflects a mistake, arising from some subjects' misconception of the game form. We conclude that choice data should not be granted an unqualified interpretation of preference revelation. Mistakes in choices obscured by a possible error at the foundations of the theory of framing, can masquerade as having been produced by non-standard preferences.

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