This paper examines the optimal production and export decisions of an international firm facing exchange rate uncertainty when the firm's preferences exhibit smooth ambiguity aversion. Ambiguity is modeled by a second-order probability distribution that captures the firm's uncertainty about...

We run an experiment that gives subjects the opportunity to hedge away ambiguity in an Ellsberg-style experiment. Subjects are asked to make two bets on the same draw from an ambiguous urn, with a coin flip deciding which bet is paid. By modifying the timing of the draw, coin flip, and decision,...

The Savage and the Anscombe-Aumann frameworks are the two most popular approaches used when modeling ambiguity. The former is more flexible, but the latter is often preferred for its simplicity. We conduct an experiment where subjects place bets on the joint outcome of an ambiguous urn and a...

This paper provides an overview of the work of Herbert Simon and his ideas about rational decision making. By his own standards, Simon is an economist who works in the tradition of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. The central theme in Simon’s research is how human beings organize themselves in...

This study compares the performance of Prospect Theory versus Stochastic Expected Utility Theory at fitting data on decision making under risk. Both theories incorporate well-known deviations from Expected Utility Maximization such as the Allais paradox or the fourfold pattern of risk attitudes....

We generalize the classical concept of a certainty equivalent to a model where an investor can trade on a capital market with several future trading dates. We show that if a riskless asset is traded and the investor has a CARA utility then our generalized certainty equivalent can be evaluated...

Define the riskiness of a gamble as the reciprocal of the absolute risk aversion (ARA) of an individual with constant ARA who is indifferent between taking and not taking that gamble. We characterize this index by axioms, chief among them a “duality” axiom which, roughly speaking, asserts...