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research has focused on studying the endowment effect for transactions that
take place in the present. Many real-world transactions, however, are delayed
into the future (i.e., people agree to buy or sell, but the actual transaction
does not materialize until a later time). Here we investigate how transaction
timing affects the endowment effect. In five studies, we show that the
endowment effect systematically increases as transactions are delayed into the
future. Specifically, buying prices significantly decrease as the transaction
is delayed, while selling prices remain constant, resulting in an amplified
endowment effect (Experiment 1). This pattern is not produced by a discounting
of the money involved in the transaction (Experiment 2), and it holds across
different types of items (Experiment 3). We also show that the phenomenon
cannot be explained by sellers anticipating becoming increasingly attached to
the items over time (Experiment 4). Finally, we demonstrate that this increased
endowment effect in the future holds in the field, in the context of a real
market and with real transactions (Experiment 5).
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