This paper reports the results of a detailed investigation of the risk-averse and loss-averse behaviour of UK individual investors. An one-period analytical model of investing behaviour is developed to explore the differences between individuals who are risk averse, and those whose behaviour is better described by Kahneman & Tversky’s Prospect Theory. Questionnaire data on risk perceptions is u...

The paper discusses criteria for comparing risk aversion of decision makers when outcomes are multidimensional. A weak concept, ”commodity specific greater risk aversion”, is based on the comparison of risk premia paid in a specified commodity. A stronger concept, ”uniformly greater risk aversion” is based on the comparison of risk premia regardless of what commodities are used for payment. Nei...

A large literature is concerned with analysis and empirical application of theories of decision making for environments with risky outcomes. Expected value theory has been known for centuries to be subject to critique by St. Petersburg paradox arguments. More recently, theories of risk aversion have been critiqued with calibration arguments applied to concave utility of payoffs. This paper exte...

Loss aversion, a well-documented behavioral phenomenon, characterizes decisions under risk in adult populations. As such, loss aversion may provide a reliable measure of risky behavior. Surprisingly, little is known about loss aversion in adolescents, a group who manifests risk-taking behavior, or in anxiety disorders, which are associated with risk-avoidance. Finally, loss aversion is expected...

This reading describes how people’s aversion to risk affects the decisions they make about investment. Basically, the concepts used to do this analysis emerge naturally when people have expected utility preferences, but not otherwise. So, it illustrates one important way that expected utility is applied. This analysis also makes it possible to illustrate how to do comparative statics. Comparati...

BACKGROUND Anxiety disorders are associated with disruptions in both emotional processing and decision making. As a result, anxious individuals often make decisions that favor harm avoidance. However, this bias could be driven by enhanced aversion to uncertainty about the decision outcome (e.g., risk) or aversion to negative outcomes (e.g., loss). Distinguishing between these possibilities may ...

Prospect theory is currently the main descriptive theory of decision under uncertainty. It generalizes expected utility by introducing nonlinear decision weighting and loss aversion. A difficulty in the study of multiattribute utility under prospect theory is to determine when an attribute yields a gain or a loss. One possibility, which has been adopted in the existing theoretical literature on...

This paper examines how aversion to risk and aversion to intertemporal substitution determine the strength of the precautionary saving motive in a two-period model with Selden/Kreps-Porteus preferences. For small risks, we derive a measure of the strength of the precautionary saving motive which generalizes the concept of "prudence" introduced by Kimball (1990b). For large risks, we show that d...

Measuring risk aversion is sensitive to assumptions about the wealth in subjects’ utility functions. Data from the same subjects in lowand high-stake lottery decisions allow estimating the wealth in a pre-specified oneparameter utility function simultaneously with risk aversion. This paper first shows how wealth estimates can be identified assuming constant relative risk aversion (CRRA). Using ...

identification and analysis of farmers’ vulnerability associated with their risk aversion degree is one of the necessary requirements for planning and reducing impacts of drought in iran. so, this study was investigated three risk vulnerability parameters (economic, social and technical) among wheat farmers categorized in accordance with their risk aversion degree in the mashhad county (iran) b...