We analyze the link between pessimism and risk-aversion. We consider a model of partially revealing, competitive rational expectations equilibrium with diverse information, in which the distribution of risk-aversion across individuals is unknown. We show that when a high individual level of...

Male and female choices differ in many economic situations, e.g., on the labor market. This paper considers whether such differences are driven by different attitudes towards competition. In our experiment subjects choose between a tournament and a piece-rate pay scheme before performing a real...

The objective of this paper is to analyze fundamental theoretical tools employed in modelling decision making problems which involve multivariate risks. By exploiting the richness of the literature, we highlight the qualities as well as the “weaknesses” specific to a wide class of decision...

According to theoretical models of valuing risky corporate securities, risk of default is primary component in overall yield spread. However, sizable empirical literature considers it otherwise by giving more importance to non-default risk factors. Current study empirically attempts to provide...

We characterize the set of second-best optimal "menus" of student-loan contracts in a simple economy with risky labour-market outcomes, adverse selection, moral hazard and risk aversion. The model combines student loans with an elementary optimal income-tax problem. The second-best optima...

Victor prefers safety more than Ursula if whenever Ursula prefers some constant to some uncertain act, so does Victor. This paradigm, whose Expected Utility version takes the form of Arrow & Pratt's more risk averse concept, will be studied in the Choquet Uncertainty model, letting u and μ (v...

Monitoring is typically included in economic models of crime thanks to a probability of detection, constant across individuals. We build on recent results in psychology to argue that comparative optimism deeply affects this standard relation. To this matter, we introduce an experiment involving...

This paper studies monotone risk aversion, the aversion to monotone, meanpreserving increase in risk (Quiggin [21]), in the Rank Dependent Expected Utility (RDEU) model. This model replaces expected utility by another functional, characterized by twofunctions, a utility function u in conjunction...