Use exact numbers to save money, but round them up if you're the one selling—people react to decimals differently depending on who's paying.
We tend to trust hyper-specific numbers when they are used to justify costs, seeing them as more legitimate. However, when we see a price hike, rounded numbers feel less 'aggressive' and are easier for the public to swallow.
The Anchor-Precision Effect in a Polarized World: Evidence from Field and Experimental Data
SSRN · 6446459
Public managers face a strategic paradox: how to minimize budget cuts from oversight bodies while maximizing public acceptance for inevitable price increases. We investigate the role of numerical precision as a solution to this dual challenge. Integrating 17 years of field data from Taiwan's government budgets (N = 18, 900) with two controlled experiments (N = 1, 350), we demonstrate that the optimal numerical strategy depends on the direction of adjustment. For budgetary defense, precision acts