Clumped or Piecewise? Evidence on Preferences for Information

Abstract

In this paper we examine individuals' attitudes toward the timing of information. We test a theoretical prediction that people prefer to get information “clumped together” rather than piecewise. We conduct a controlled lab experiment where subjects participate in a lottery and can choose between different resolutions of uncertainty (clumped or piecewise) and analyze which kind of resolution is preferred. Two additional treatments allow us to get a quantitative measure of subjects' preferences over different information structures. Our data provide little support for a systematic aversion to piecewise information on the aggregate level. In additional treatment conditions, we demonstrate the robustness of our findings and explore potential explanations. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1884 . This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.

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