This paper develops a new method of estimating risk aversion using data on labor supply behavior. In particular, I show that existing evidence on labor supply behavior places a tight upper bound on risk aversion in the expected utility model. I derive a formula for the coe¢ cient of relative risk aversion ( ) in terms of (1) the ratio of the income elasticity of labor supply to the wage elastic...

This paper uses a tractable macroeconomic model with idiosyncratic human capital risk and incomplete markets to analyze the growth and welfare effects of business cycles. The analysis is based on the assumption that the elimination of business cycles eliminates the variation in idiosyncratic risk. The paper shows that a reduction in the variation in idiosyncratic risk decreases the ratio of phy...

This paper presents extensive empirical testing of the hypothesis that greater post-schooling earnings risk requires higher expected returns. Expanding on this notion, on the basis of utility theory, we predict that workers not only care about risk but also about the skewness in the distribution of the compensation paid: workers exhibit risk aversion and skewness affection. To test these hypoth...

This paper generalizes the notion of risk aversion for functions which are not necessarily differentiable nor strictly concave. Using an approach based on superdifferentials, we define the notion of a risk aversion measure, from which the classical absolute as well as relative risk aversion follows as a RadonNikodym derivative if it exists. Using this notion, we are able to compare risk aversio...

This paper focuses on the issue of limited financial market participation and determines a lower bound on the level of fixed transaction costs that are required to reconcile observed portfolio choices with asset returns within an isoelastic utility framework. The bound is determined from the set of conditions that ensure the optimality of consumption behavior by financial market non-participant...

* We thank Massimo Marinacci and Jacob Sagi for helpful suggestions. We also thank Kirsten Rohde for help with parts of the study conducted at the University of Maastricht.

In a preceding paper (Montesano, 1999b) a systematic set of definitions on risk and uncertainty aversion was introduced with regard to unidimensional lotteries and acts. Taking into account only the preference preordering over the set of all possible lotteries and acts represented by the certainty equivalent function, many propositions were introduced and demostrated on global and local risk an...

In this paper we reply to Binmore and Shaked’s criticism of the Fehr-Schmidt model of inequity aversion. We put the theory and their arguments into perspective and show that their criticism is not substantiated. Finally, we briefly comment on the main challenges for future research on social preferences.