IMO, the Concorde justifications are transparent rationalizations - if you want research, buy research. It'd be pretty odd if you could buy more research by not buying research but commercial products... In any case, I mention Concorde because it's such a famous example and because a bunch of papers call it the Concorde effect.
I agree with your analysis that sunk cost is useful to counter other biases.
I'm not terribly confident in that claim; it might be that one suffers them both simultaneously. I had to resort to anecdotes and speculation for that section; it's intuitively appealing, but we all know that means little without hard data.
I didn't think about the part of young children not committing it, but now that you pointed to studies showing it, it makes perfect sense (and is compatible with my own personal observation of young relatives).
Yeah. I was quite surprised when I ran into Arkes's claim - it certainly didn't match my memories of being a kid! - and kept a close eye out thenceforth for studies which might bear on it.
IMO, the Concorde justifications are transparent rationalizations - if you want research, buy research. It'd be pretty odd if you could buy more research by not buying research but commercial products... In any case, I mention Concorde because it's such a famous example and because a bunch of papers call it the Concorde effect.
It really depends on your view of academics. If you think that if you hand them a pile of money they just invest it into playing status games with each other, giving them a clear measurable outcome to provides feedback around which they have to structure their research could be helpful.
I just finished the first draft of my essay, "Are Sunk Costs Fallacies?"; there is still material I need to go through, but the bulk of the material is now there. The formatting is too gnarly to post here, so I ask everyone's forgiveness in clicking through.
To summarize:
(If any of that seems unlikely or absurd to you, click through. I've worked very hard to provide multiple citations where possible, and fulltext for practically everything.)
I started this a while ago; but Luke/SIAI paid for much of the work, and that motivation plus academic library access made this essay more comprehensive than it would have been and finished months in advance.