Every Econ PhD Student in the World Had His Tivo on Tonight

Or at least somebody should be taping this new game show Deal or No Deal so they can write a paper about it.

On the show, contestants get a suitcase with some amount of money in it and they get to keep the contents or take a certain offer that some “banker” on the phone is offering. A good chance to test risk aversion. They even help the home audience by putting up some key numbers on the screen (“She has a 13% chance of winning a million dollars.”) It is a great opportunity to test risk aversion at high stakes, subject to the distortion induced by being on national TV with a live audience screaming at you while you make your choices.

My guess: the show will stay on the air long enough to generate enough data for an academic paper to analyze it, but not much longer.