This paper characterizes the optimal first-price auction (FPA) and second-price auction (SPA) for selling rights, contracts, or licenses that involve ensuing payoff uncertainty for the winning bidder. The distribution of the random payoff is common knowledge, except that bidders have private...

Higher order risk preferences are important determinants of economic behaviour. We apply behavioural insights to this topic: we measure higher order risk preferences for pure gains and pure losses by controlling the reference point. We find a reflection effect not only for second order risk...

We show that if an agent is uncertain about the precise form of his utility function, his actual relative risk aversion may depend on wealth even if he knows his utility function lies in the class of constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) utility functions. We illustrate the consequences of this...

Theory predicts that entrepreneurs have distinct attitudes towards risk and uncertainty, but empirical evidence is mixed. To better understand the unique behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs and the causes of these mixed results, we perform a large "lab-in-the-field" experiment comparing...

We focus on the effect of preference specifications on the current day valuation of future outcomes. Specifically, we analyze the effect of risk aversion, ambiguity aversion and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution on the willingness to pay to avoid climate change risk. The first part of...

This paper proposes an alternative, dynamic framework for estimatingtime-varying values of travel time savings and values of schedule delay, in whichtime-preferences are represented as the time-varying excess willingness to pay(EWPT) to being in the one location, over being elsewhere. It is...

Most evidence of hyperbolic discounting is based on violations of either stationarity or time consistency as observed in choice experiments. These choice reversals may however also result from time-varying discount rates. Hyperbolic discounting is a plausible explanation for choice reversals...

The value of travel time plays an important role in cost benefit analysis of infrastructureprojects. However, the issue of uncertainty on travel times and the implications this has forestimations of travel time values has received much less attention in the literature. In thispaper we compare...