We test whether social reference points impact individual risk taking. In a laboratory experiment, decision makers observe the earnings of a peer subject before making a risky choice. We exogenously manipulate the peer earnings across two treatments. We find a significant treatment effect on...

In this paper I analyze the attractiveness of a rank-order tournament if both market sides, employers and workers, can choose between several payment systems. I consider the self-selection of workers into different payment schemes, their effort provisions and the payment system choices of...

Insurance contract nonperformance relates to situations when valid claims are not paid by the insurer. We extend probabilistic insurance models to allow for such nonperformance risk as well as ambiguity regarding nonperformance and loss probabilities. We empirically test theoretical predictions...

In this paper we propose a new method to elicit the intensity of individual's risk preferences. Our method uses a simple multiple price-list format and is based on the increasing risk definitions of Rothschild and Stiglitz (1970, 1971). We are thus able to classify individuals as more or less...

The St. Petersburg Paradox is one of the oldest violations of expected utility theory. Thus far, explanations of the paradox aim at small probabilities being perceived as zero and the boundedness of utility. This paper provides experimental results showing that neither risk attitudes nor...

Auctions often involve goods exhibiting a common knowledge ex-post risk. Precautionary bidding predicts that under expected utility, ex-post risk leads DARA bidders to reduce their bids by more than the appropriate risk premium. Because the degree of riskiness of the good, and bidders risk...

We study risk attitudes, ambiguity attitudes, and time preferences of 661 children and adolescents, aged ten to eighteen years, in an incentivized experiment. We relate experimental choices to field behavior. Experimental measures of impatience are found to be significant predictors of health...

Auctions often involve goods exhibiting a common knowledge ex-post risk that is independent of buyers' private values or their signals regarding common value components. Esö and White (2004) showed theoretically that ex-post risk leads to precautionary bidding for DARA bidders: Agents reduce...

We study risk-aversion and prudence in medical treatment decisions. In a laboratory experiment, we investigate the frequency and intensity of second- and third-order risk preferences, as well as the effect of the medical decision context. Risk preferences are assessed through treatment...