Putting risk in its proper place

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Eeckhoudt, L; Schlesinger, H
• 署名单位: University of Alabama System; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of Konstanz
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/000282806776157777
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 280-289
• 关键词: background risk; increasing risk; aversion; vulnerability; uncertainty; INEQUALITY; prudence

摘要

This paper examines preferences toward particular classes of lottery pairs. We show how such concepts as prudence and temperance can be fully characterized by a preference relation over these lotteries. If preferences are defined in an expected-utility framework with differentiable utility, the direction of preference for a particular class of lottery pairs is equivalent to signing the n(th) derivative of the utility function. What makes our characterization appealing is its simplicity, which seems particularly amenable to experimentation.