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...

This paper provides a general framework for a unifying treatment of stochastic dominance of any degree and of any type (direct or inverse for each final or intermediary level). It gives the conditions for the congruence between stochastic dominance and classes of utility functions in this...

Information about traffic conditions has traditionally been conveyed to drivers by radio and variable message signs, and more recently via the Internet and Advanced Traveler Information Systems. This has spurred research on how travelers respond to information, how much they are willing to pay...

We consider a decision maker facing uncertainty which behaves as a subjective expected utility maximizer. The value of information is traditionnaly captured as a greater expected utility the decision maker can achieve by selecting a best strategy as information arrives. We deal with the limit...

Certain areas related to the topics under discussion here lie outside my field; for instance the evaluation of risk assessment and security deficiencies in the transport sector. What has convinced me of the importance of this subject are a few very general conclusions, indeed I would say,...