The idea of representing choice under uncertainty as a trade-off between mean returns and some measure of risk or uncertainty is fundamental to the analysis of investment decisions. In this paper, we show that preferences can be characterized in this way, even in the absence of objective...

The central claim of this paper is that the state-contingent approach provides the best way to think about all problems in the economics of uncertainty, including problems of consumer choice, the theory of the firm, and principal-agent relationships. This claim is illustrated by recent...

Separation results, as they are usually understood, refer to conditions under which a firm's production decisions are independent of its risk attitudes. Well-understood situations where separation occurs typically include those where technically feasible production opportunities are replicable...

Optimal producer behavior in the presence of area-yield insurance is studied. The producer's optimal production and insurance choices are characterized. The effect of the provision of area-yield insurance on production patterns is studied, and sufficient conditions for the provision of...

The state-contingent properties of the most frequently used representations of stochastic production in the agricultural-economics literature are examined. Particular attention is paid to the cases of multiplicative uncertainty, additive uncertainty, and the Just-Pope production function....