Time and the endowment effect revisited

When selling goods, people want to receive a higher price than the price they want to pay when buying identical goods. This phenomenon is generally known as the endowment effect. Recently, the endowment effect has been applied to the subjective value of time. However, relevant studies suffer from conceptual problems that render their results difficult to interpret. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is threefold: first, to clarify the concept 'endowment effect', second, to examine the endowment effect in the context of buying and selling time, and, third, to test two psychological hypotheses explaining and predicting an endowment effect in the subjective value of time. One hundred and twenty subjects (no students) completed a questionnaire in which they indicated how much they would want to pay and to get paid for doing daily shopping chores and moving chores, how agreeable they and a comparable found these chores, and how much time they and a comparable peer needed for them. The order of the two target persons (self versus peer) was manipulated. Filler items were included to separate questions on the two target persons. For daily shopping chores only, the results showed an endowment effect stricto sensu (subjects wanted to get paid more than they were willing to pay) that could not be explained by perceived self-other differences in how effectively people use their shopping time and how agreeable they find shopping.status: publishe