The Context, or Reference, Dependence of Economic Values: Further Evidence and Some Predictable Patterns Jack L. Knetsch and Fang-Fang Tang

The available empirical evidence is frequently at odds with the stability of preferences, fungibility, and procedural invariance assumptions of standard theory and economic practice. The findings indicate that instead of according with the usual axioms, people’s preferences commonly depend on the context, or the reference position, in which valuations are made. The numerous recent reports of such discrepancies reflect both the ease of demonstrating them and the consistency of results across a range of search methods.