We document a robust dynamic inconsistency in risky choice. Using a unique brokerage dataset and two preregistered experiments, we compare people's initial risk-taking plans to their subsequent decisions. In both settings, people accept risk as part of a "loss-exit" strategy-planning to continue...

Consider a robust consumption-investment problem for a risk- and ambiguity-averse investor who is concerned about return ambiguity in risky asset prices. When the investor aims to maximize the worst-case scenario of his/her consumption-investment objective, we propose a dual approach to the...

This paper is concerned with how the effect of task complexity on behavioural error is better modelled and how the better performance of a stochastic model can be understood in a behavioural sense. Three behavioural error models are considered in this study; each accommodates the complexity...

Despite the compelling evidence on gain-loss-domain-dependent behavior, research on domain-dependent portfolio diversification is scarce. In an online experimental study, we recruited 251 experienced US retail investors to select portfolios that differ in asset correlation and risk measures in...

We use probability-matching variations on Ellsberg’s single-urn experiment to assess three questions: (1) How sensitive are ambiguity attitudes to changes from a gain to a loss frame? (2) How sensitive are ambiguity attitudes to making ambiguity easier to recognize? (3) What is the relation...

We find that financial decision-making power per se is significant in explaining individuals’ objective risk-taking behavior and subjective risk attitude. More importantly, we show that this decision power attenuates the correlation between subjective risk attitude and objective risk taking....

We view innovation investment as a real option and explore the implications of ambiguity (Knightian uncertainty) and risk for innovation decisions. Our analysis uses a risk measure and a new outcome-independent measure of ambiguity. We find a consistently significant negative effect of ambiguity...

We analyze the impact of risk and ambiguity aversion using a lifecycle recursive utility model. Both risk and ambiguity aversion are shown to reduce annuity demand and enhance bond holdings. We obtain this result using an intertemporal framework in which we can vary both risk and ambiguity...

We study a decision-maker who selects, in every fixed period of time, T times from every collection of feasible alternatives, where T is pre-determined by him. We axiomatize the class of T-choice functions according to which the decision-maker has fixed preference relation along the same period...

Economists have become increasingly interested in using attention to explain behavioral patterns both on the micro and macro level. This has resulted in several disparate theoretical approaches. Some, like rational inattention, assume a "top-down" model of executive optimization. Others, like...

We document a robust dynamic inconsistency in risky choice. Using a unique brokerage dataset and two preregistered experiments, we compare people's initial risk-taking plans to their subsequent decisions. In both settings, people accept risk as part of a "loss-exit" strategy-planning to continue...

Expected utility theory (EUT) is currently the standard framework which formally defines rational decision-making under risky conditions. EUT uses a theoretical device called von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function, where concepts of function and random variable are employed in their...

Companies are increasingly adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) today. Recently however debates started over the risk of human cognitive biases being replicated (and scaled) by AI. Research on biases in AI predicting consumer choice is incipient and focuses on observable biases. We provide a...

Economists often estimate a subset of their model parameters outside the model and let the decision-makers inside the model treat these point estimates as-if they are correct. This practice ignores model ambiguity, opens the door for misspecification of the decision problem, and leads to...

This paper empirically examines the behavioral precautionary saving hypothesis by Koszegi and Rabin (2009) stating that uncertainty about future income triggers saving because of loss aversion. We extend their theoretical analysis to also consider the internal margin, i.e., the strength, of loss...

In the present paper, we investigate the Merton portfolio management problem in the context of non-exponential discounting, a context that gives rise to time-inconsistency of the decision-maker. We consider equilibrium policies within the class of open-loop controls that are characterized, in...

In der gesetzlichen und der betrieblichen Altersversorgung existieren unterschiedlichen Finanzierungssysteme: Die Leistungen der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung werden im Umlageverfahren primär von den heute in das System einzahlenden Erwerbstätigen finanziert. Dieses Umlageverfahren im...

This paper investigates the dynamics of group decisions regarding risky tax avoidance strategies using a laboratory experiment. To identify the causes of risk taking by groups, we compare individual to group decisions in three scenarios. The first scenario allocates payoffs from group decisions...

This paper documents that when a southern California home gets designated to a wildfire risk zone, its price drops by 11% relative to homes just outside the designation boundary. Whereas the risk designation is discontinuous, the underlying risk is continuous — suggesting the price effect is...

Two non-transitive theories to model decision making under risk are regret theory (Loomes and Sugden, 1982, 1987) and salience theory (Bordalo, Gennaioli, and Shleifer, 2012). While the psychological underpinning of these two approaches is different, the models share the assumption that...

It is well known that innovation law and policy must strike a balance between incentivizing inventions on the one hand, and granting monopolies to successful innovators on the other. In achieving this balance, it is commonly presumed that actors in innovation markets respond to their economic...

We present a novel descriptive model of choice that achieves an efficient representation anchored to how the brain represents value. An individual's behavior is fully described by two primitives: an individual's "reward expectation'' and a free parameter we call "predisposition''. We demonstrate...

This paper analyzes optimal risk sharing among agents that are endowed with either expected utility preferences or with dual utility preferences. We find that Pareto optimal risk redistributions and the competitive equilibria can be obtained via bargaining with a hypothetical representative...

This project examines the role of heterogeneity in gain-loss attitudes for identi- fying models of expectations-based reference dependence (Kőszegi and Rabin, 2006, 2007) (KR). Different gain-loss attitudes lead to different signs for KR comparative statics. Failure to account for the known...

This paper investigates the dynamics of group decisions regarding risky tax avoidance strategies using a laboratory experiment. To identify the causes of risk taking by groups, we compare individual to group decisions in three scenarios. The first scenario allocates payoffs from group decisions...

According to the Description-Experience gap (DE gap), people act as if overweighting rare events when information about those events is derived from descriptions but as if underweighting rare events when they experience them through a sampling process. While the is now clear evidence that the DE...

Two new reports from the team behind the annual Global Risks Report identify the headline risks, challenges and, encouragingly, the opportunities the world is facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of raising awareness, fostering widespread debate and enabling better...

In der gesetzlichen und der betrieblichen Altersversorgung existieren unterschiedlichen Finanzierungssysteme: Die Leistungen der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung werden im Umlageverfahren primär von den heute in das System einzahlenden Erwerbstätigen finanziert. Dieses Umlageverfahren im...

This paper studies bilateral risk-sharing with no aggregate uncertainty, when agents maximize rank-dependent utilities. We characterize the structure of Pareto optimal risk-sharing contracts in full generality. We then derive a necessary and sufficient condition for Pareto optima to be...

This textbook incorporates the author's previous book "The Economics of Uncertainty and Insurance" and extends it with the addition of several new chapters on risk sharing, asymmetric information, adverse selection, signaling and moral hazard. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the...

1. Introduction -- 2. Risk and Risk Perception: Why we are not Rational in the Face of Risk -- 3. Expected Utility, Prospect Theory, and the Allais Paradox: Why Reference Points are Important -- 4. Confirmation Bias and Anchoring Effect: Why the First Piece of Information is Key in Negotiations...