Salience theory of Choice Under Risk

• Authors: Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer
• Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 127, No. 3, 1243-1285, January 2012

We present a theory of choice among lotteries in which the decision maker's attention is drawn to (precisely defined) salient payoffs. This leads the decision maker to a context-dependent representation of lotteries in which true probabilities are replaced by decision weights distorted in favor of salient payoffs. By specifying decision weights as a function of payoffs, our model provides a novel and unified account of many empirical phenomena, including frequent risk-seeking behavior, invariance failures such as the Allais paradox, and preference reversals. It also yields new predictions, including some that distinguish it from prospect theory, which we test.