The common consequence effect: testing a unified explanation of recent mixed evidence

The common consequence effect is perhaps the most investigated violation of expected utility theory, and yet no single generalised expected utility mo del convincingly organises the experimental data. This gager reports a test of a modified version of expected cardinality-specific utility theory with boundary effects [Neilson, W.S., 1992, Economics Letters 39, 275-278] whic h can explain some recent mixed evidence without recourse to subjective pro bability weighting models. The results do not convincingly support the boun dary effect hypothesis, and neither support the more usual probability weig hting arguments, but do indicate instability in preferences largely consist ent with event-splitting effects. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.