We introduce a simple measure of risk aversion in the large. Besides satisfying properties which are conceptually analogous to the usual properties of the Arrow-Pratt measure, the index of risk aversion in the large leads to a stronger concept of decreasing risk aversion, which necessarily...

This paper introduces and investigates the concept of repetitive risk aversion. The risk aversion of an increasing and concave utility function is repetitive if the fear of ruin, which measures agent's aversion to risking his entire income, is also increasing and concave. This is shown to be...

We analyse participation in medical prevention with an expected utility model that is sufficiently rich to capture diverging features of different prevention procedures. We distinguish primary and secondary prevention (with one or two rounds) for both fatal or non-fatal diseases. Moreover, we...

This paper considers the problem of the optimal timing of the exchange of the sum of n geometric Brownian motions for the sum of m others. We propose a closed form determinable stopping time based on the heuristic principle of smooth fit. We cannot prove that this stopping time is optimal....

This paper considers the general problem of optimal timing of the exchange of the sum of n Ito-diffusions for the sum of m others (e.g., the optimal time to exchange a geometric Brownian motion for a geometric mean reverting process). We first contribute to the literature by providing analytical...

The paper analyzes the process of market selection of investment strategies in an incomplete market of short-lived assets. In the model under study, asset payoffs depend on exogenous random factors. Market participants use dynamic investment strategies taking account of the available information...

This paper examines how to satisfy a separability condition related to “independence of the utilities of the dead” (Blackorby et al., 1995; Bommier and Zuber, 2008) in the class of “expected equally distributed equivalent” social orderings (Fleurbaey, 2010). It also inquires into the...

Considering a consumer with standard preferences, I trace out the consequences for risk aversion and prudence of quantity constraints on markets. I first show how the effect can be decomposed into a price risk effect and an endogenously changing risk aversion/prudence effect. Next, I calibrate...

Profit maximization is not a well defined objective when markets are incomplete. Several criteria of investment choice have therefore been put forward in the literature, some of which crucially hinge upon aggregation of shareholders' preferences, as is the case with the criteria proposed by...

Presidential address for the Twelfth World Congress of the International Economic Association, summarising semi-formally the author's recent work and concerns. Uncertainty and incomplete markets breed demand volatility as well as price and wage rigidities. The conjunction of these leads to...