Risk Perception: Measurement and Aggregation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Netzer, Nick; Robson, Arthur; Steiner, Jakub; Kocourek, Pavel
• 署名单位: University of Zurich; Simon Fraser University; Czech Academy of Sciences; Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences; Charles University Prague; University of Duisburg Essen
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvae053
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1309-1349
• 关键词: probability distortion; prospect-theory; CHOICE; preferences; DECISION; aversion; MODEL

摘要

In a model inspired by neuroscience, we study choice between lotteries as a process of encoding and decoding noisy perceptual signals. The implications of this process for behavior depend on the decision-maker's understanding of risk. When the aggregation of perceptual signals is coarse, encoding and decoding generate behavioral risk attitudes even for vanishing perceptual noise. We show that the optimal encoding of lottery rewards is S-shaped and that low-probability events are optimally oversampled. Taken together, the model can explain adaptive-risk attitudes and probability weighting, as in prospect theory. Furthermore, it predicts that risk attitudes are influenced by the anticipation of risk, time pressure, experience, salience, and availability heuristics.