This paper examines the determinants of tax evasion under prospect theory. For prospect theory, reference dependence is a fundamental element (the utility function depends on gains and losses relative to a reference point and not on final wealths as in expected utility theory). In order to...

The explanation of social inequalities in education is still a debated issue in economics. Recent empirical studies tend to downplay the potential role of credit constraint. This article tests a different potential explanation of social inequalities in education, specifically that social...

We investigate the relation between welfare and preference satisfaction in economics, and show that the extension of the scope of economic analysis through the 20th century forces economists to question the validity of the preference satisfaction criterion as a normative criterion for evaluating...

In an often quoted article, Genesove and Mayer (2001) observe that house sellers are reluctant to sell at a loss, and attribute this finding to loss aversion. I show that loss aversion cannot explain this phenomenon.

I show that a loss averse consumer who must share her budget between two goods prefer allocations for which consumption equals reference point for at least one good. The phenomenon intensity depends on the curvature of the utility curve. These results are consistent with several stylized facts...

Global environmental phenomena like climate change, major extinction events or flutype pandemics can have catastrophic consequences. By properly assessing the outcomes involved - especially those concerning human life - economic theory of choice under uncertainty is expected to help people take...

Since von Neuman and Morgenstern's (1944) contribution to game theory, a rational decision maker will rank risky prospects according to the celebrated Expected utility criterion. This method takes lotteries i.e. (simple) probability distributions to represent risky prospects. If the decision...

In this paper we want to explore an argumentative pattern that provides a normative justification for expected utility functions grounded on empirical evidence, showing how it worked in three different episodes of their development. The argument claims that we should prudentially maximize our...

This chapter of a collective book aims at presenting the basics of decision making under risk. We first define notions of risk and increasing risk and recall definitions and classifications (that are valid independently of any representation) of behavior under risk. We then review the classical...

This paper proposes an experiment about the attitude toward probabilities on a population of portfolio managers. Its aim is to check whether or not portfolio managers are neutral toward probabilities. Meanwhile, it presents a experimental protocole that highlights an inconsistency between two...