Define the riskiness of a gamble as the reciprocal of the absolute risk aversion (ARA) of an individual with constant ARA who is indifferent between taking and not taking that gamble. We characterize this index by axioms, chief among them a "duality" axiom that, roughly speaking, asserts that...

Stochastic dominance is a partial order on risky assets (“gambles”) that is based on the uniform preference—of all decision-makers in an appropriate class—for one gamble over another. We modify this requirement, first, by taking into account the status quo (given by the current wealth)...

We propose a measure of riskiness of “gambles” (risky assets) that is objective: it depends only on the gamble and not on the decision maker. The measure is based on identifying for every gamble the critical wealth level below which it becomes “risky” to accept the gamble.