We re-examine the link between absolute prudence and self-protection activities. We show that the level of effort chosen by an agent with decreasing absolute prudence is larger than the optimal effort chosen by a risk-neutral agent if the degree of absolute prudence is less than a threshold that...

We examine the portfolio-choice puzzle posed by Canner, Mankiw, and Weil [Canner, N., Mankiw, N.G., Weil, D.N., 1997. An asset allocation puzzle. The American Economic Review 87, 181-191]. From data on the portfolio composition of 470 clients of a brokerage firm, we obtain that the bonds/stocks...