A main prediction of agency theory is the well known risk-incentive trade-off. Incentive contracts should be found in environments with little uncertainty and for agents with low degrees of risk aversion. There is an ongoing debate in the literature about the first trade-off. Due to lack of...

We examine how physical abilities affect individuals' preferences. In particular, by incorporating social comparison into prospect theory, we directly estimate the degree of loss aversion from social comparison, a concept we term `ALJ' (\textit{Avoiding Loss relative to the Joneses}). Our main...

The new Medicare Part D program provides prescription drug coverage for older Americans through highly subsidized and tightly regulated plans offered by private insurance firms. For most eligible individuals without coverage from other sources, obtaining Part D coverage would be rational, but it...

We elicit and compare risk preferences from student subjects and subjects drawn from the general population, using the multiple price list method devised by Holt and and Laury (2002). We find evidence suggesting that students have lower relative risk aversion than others.

We show that whatever the representation of criminals' preferences under risk, the assumption according to which they are strongly risk averse individuals is not consistent with the available observations establishing that criminals are more sensitive to shifts in the probability of sanction...

This paper studies the influence of entrepreneurial culture among social groups in an economy. The cultural factor determines their occupational preferences. We develop a model in which a concentration factor has been used as a measure of business culture determining the occupational choice...

We analyse Nash equilibrium in time of use of a congested facility. Users are risk averse with general concave utility. Queues are subject to varying degrees of random sorting, ranging from strict queue priority to a completely random queue. We define the key "no residual queue" property, which...

The paper examines the impacts of heterogeneity in the degree of relative risk aversion on the balance on current account in the framework of endogenous growth, and concludes that, like heterogeneity in demographic changes, heterogeneity in the degree of relative risk aversion generates...

A disturbing feature of the conventional objective function for intertemporal decisions under uncertainty is that the agent's attitudes toward intertemporal substitution and risk aversion are entangled. This paper shows that, in contrast to common perception, the two attitudes can be completely...

In this paper we generalize the heterogeneous risk adverse agents model of diffusion of new products in a multi-firm, heterogeneous and interacting agents environment. We use a model of choice under uncertainty based on Bayesian theory. We discuss the possibility of product failures, the set of...