When central banks announce cuts to future interest rates, the expected costs of government debt service decrease, generating additional resources in future budgets. This paper demonstrates that if the rational-expectations assumption is dropped, fiscal authority can exploit those gains by...

We consider economic obstacles that limit the reliability and accuracy of value-at-risk (VaR). Investors who manage large market transactions should take into account the impact of the randomness of large trade volumes on predictions of price probability and VaR assessments. We introduce...

We examine whether the way individuals randomize between options captures their decision confidence. In two experiments in which subjects faced pairs of options (a lottery and a varying sure payment), we allowed subjects to choose randomization probabilities according to which they would receive...

Samuelson (1963) conjectured that accepting multiple independent gambles you would reject on a stand-alone basis violated expected utility theory. Ross (1999) and others presented examples where expected utility maximizers would accept multiple gambles that would be rejected on a stand-alone...

The relationship between decision-making and risk carries significant implications, particularly within the context of financial institutions. Understanding the causal connection between these two factors is essential, especially when considering the broader implications of social...

This study explores how people learn and adapt their risk preferences using different elicitation methods, challenging the neoclassical theory that suggests preferences are fixed. Instead, we show that preferences can change. However, we aim to explain whether the observed changes are due to a...

Using a simple duopolistic trade model with demand uncertainty and an identical traded product, we show that we can view trade in goods as implicit exports/imports of risk and risk aversion. Specifically, we show that a relatively “risk-aversion abundant” country is more likely to be a net...

Old problems of the mathematical description of the economical behavior of a man are briefly reviewed. They are the comparison of choices of a man between uncertain and sure games and the radically different behavior of a man in different domains. The proposed solution of the problems consists...

Environmental risk (ER) has become increasingly crucial in international business, and firms endeavor to integrate environmental risk management (ERM) into business strategies. Examining a sample of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and alliances conducted by US firms from 39 host...

Bounded cardinal utility theory (BCUT), built on the seminal work of Van Praag (1968), is based on three axioms. • The leaning-S-shaped utility function reflects the individual’s experiences of fulfilment of a need – deprivation (increasing marginal utility (MU)), subsistence (a point of...