We define a class of risk-taking-neutral (RTN) background risks. These background risks have the property that they will not alter decisions made with respect to another risk, for individuals with HARA utility. If we wish to compare a decision made with and without some exogenous background...

High correlations between risks can increase required insurer capital and/orreduce the availability of insurance. For such insurance lines, securitizationis rapidly emerging as an alternative form of risk transfer. The ultimatesuccess of securitization in replacing or complementing traditional...

This paper examines preferences towards particular classes of lottery pairs. We show how concepts such 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...

We examine asset prices in a representative-agent model of general equilibrium. Assuming only that individuals are risk averse, we determine conditions on the changes in asset risk that are both necessary and sufficient for the asset price to fall. We show that these conditions neither imply,...

Higher-order risk effects play an important role in examining economic behavior under uncertainty. A precautionary demand for saving has been linked to the property of prudence and the property of temperance has been used to show how the presence of an unavoidable risk affects one’s behavior...

Consider a simple two-state risk with equal probabilities for the two states. In particular, assume that the random wealth variable Xi dominates Yi via ith-order stochastic dominance for i = M,N. We show that the 50-50 lottery [XN + YM, YN + XM] dominates the lottery [XN + XM, YN + YM] via (N +...

We examine how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her family, in the event of an untimely death. Ideally,...

Decisions under risk are often multidimensional, where the preferences of the decision maker depend on several attributes. For example, an individual might be concerned about both her level of wealth and the condition of her health. Many times the signs of successive cross derivatives of a...

How does risk affect saving? Empirical work typically examines the effects of detectible differences in risk within the data. How these differences affect saving in theoretical models depends on the metric one uses for risk. For labor-income risk, second-degree increases in risk require prudence...

We consider a competitive insurance market with adverse selection. Unlike the standard models, we assume that individuals receive the benefit of some type of potential government assistance that guarantees them a minimum level of wealth. For example, this assistance might be some type of...