Sensitivity (proportionality) of willingness to pay to (small) risk changes is often used as a criterion to test for valid measures of economic preferences. In a contingent valuation (CV) study conducted in Austria, 1,005 respondents were asked their willingness to pay (WTP) for preventing an...

The prospect theory is one of the most popular decision-making theories. It is based on the S-shaped utility function, unlike the von Neumann and Morgenstern (NM) theory, which is based on the concave utility function. The S-shape brings in mathematical challenges: simple extensions and...

This paper examines the interplay between the real and financial decisions of the competitive firm under output price uncertainty. The firm faces additional sources of uncertainty that are aggregated into a background risk. We show that the firm always chooses its optimal debt-equity ratio to...

This paper applies the dichotomous theory of choice by Zou (2000a) tothe analysis of investmentstrategies and security markets. Issues concerning individualoptimality, (approximate) arbitrage,capital market equilibrium, and Pareto efficiency are studied undervarious market conditions. Among the...

This paper presents a new axiomatic characterization of risk measures that are additive for independent random variables. In contrast to previous work, we include an axiom that guarantees monotonicity of the risk measure. Furthermore, the axiom of additivity for independent random variables is...

In this paper, we consider a problem in environmental policy design by applying optimal stopping rules. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the optimal timings at which the government should adopt environmental policies to deal with increases in greenhouse gas concentrations and to reduce...

We specify a stochastic economy-climate model, adapting Nordhaus' deterministic economy-climate model by allowing for Weitzman-type stochasticity. We show that, under expected power utility, the model is fragile to heavy-tailed distributional assumptions and we derive necessary and sufficient...

In this study we propose an axiomatic theory of decision-making under risk that is based on a new approach to the modeling of framing that focuses on the subjective statistical dependence between prizes of compared lotteries. Unlike existing models that allow objective statistical dependence, as...

In this paper the climate change effect is an unforeseen earth temperature level above which a negative externality on technology and hence on society's welfare is exerted. We use a dynamic overlapping generations model to develop a positive analysis of the growth path of an economy with the...

We discuss the selection of the socially optimal discount rate for public investment projects that entail costs and benefits in the very long run. More specifically, we examine in an expected utility framework how the uncertainty on the growth rate of the GNP per head affects this rate. Under...