Many important decisions are made without precise information about the probabilities of the outcomes. In such situations, individual ambiguity attitudes influence decision making. The present study identifies affective states as a transient cause of ambiguity attitudes. We conducted two...

This paper analyses the behavior of an individual who wants to maximize his utility function, but he is not able to evaluate it. There are many ways to choose a single alternative from a given set. We show that a unique utility maximizing procedure exists. Choices induced by this optimal...

See also <I>Social ties and coordination on negative reciprocity: The role of affect</I>, <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272707000679">Journal of Public Economics'</A>, 2008, 92, 34-53.<P> This experimental study investigates how behavior changes after punishment for an unkind action. It also studies how fairness perceptions affect the reaction to...</p></a></i>

Given the possibility to modify the probability of a loss, will a profit-maximizing insurer engage in loss prevention or is it in his interest to increase the loss probability? This paper investigates this question. First, we calculate the expected profit maximizing loss probability within an...

An expected utility based cost-benefit analysis is in general fragile to its distributional assumptions. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions on the utility function of the expected utility model to avoid this. The conditions ensure that expected (marginal) utility remains finite also...