a higher price to part with an object than buyers are willing to pay because neither has a well-defined, precise valuation for the object and therefore there is a range of prices over which neither buyers nor sellers have much incentive to trade. For example, in the case of Kahneman et al.'s (1990) classic mug experiments (where sellers demanded about $7 to part with their mug whereas buyers were only willing to pay, on average, about $3 to acquire a mug) there was likely a range of prices for the mug ($4 to $6) that left the buyers and sellers without much incentive to either acquire or part with it. Buyers and sellers therefore maintained the status quo out of inertia. Conversely, a high price ($7 or more) yielded a meaningful incentive for an owner to part with the mug; likewise, a relatively low price ($3 or less) yielded a meaningful incentive for a buyer to acquire the mug. Reference-dependent accounts According to reference-dependent theories, consumers first evaluate the potential change in question as either being a gain or a loss. In line with prospect theory (Tversky and Kahneman, 1979), changes that are framed as losses are weighed more heavily than are the changes framed as gains. Thus an individual owning "A" amount of a good, asked how much he/she would be willing to pay to acquire "B", would be willing to pay a value (B-A) that is lower than the value that he/she would be willing to accept to sell (C-A) units; the value function for perceived gains is not as steep as the value function for perceived losses. Figure 1 presents this explanation in graphical form. An individual at point A, asked how much he/she would be willing to accept (WTA) as compensation to sell X units and move to point C, would demand greater compensation for that loss than he/she would be willing to pay for an equivalent gain of X units to move him/her to point B. Thus the difference between (B-A) and (C-A) would account for the endowment effect. In other words, he/she expects more money while selling; but wants to pay less while buying the same amount of goods. Figure 1 : Prospect Theory and the Endowment Effect Neoclassical explanations Hanemann (1991), develops a neoclassical explanation for the endowment effect, accounting for the effect without invoking prospect theory. Figure 2 presents this explanation in