Considerable evidence shows that people have optimistic beliefs about future outcomes. I present an axiomatic model of wishful thinking (WT), in which an endowed alternative, or status quo, influences the agent's beliefs over states and thus induces such optimism. I introduce a behavioral axiom...

The distinction of risk vs uncertainty as made by Knight has important implications for policy selection. Assuming the former when the latter is relevant can lead to wrong decisions. With the aid of a stylized model that describes a bank's decision on how to allocate loans, the authors discuss...

The objective of the paper is to analyse the impact of the Swiss National Bank's decision to introduce the floati ng exchange rate of the franc on January 15th, 2015, upon the market value of commercial banks operating in the Polish banking sector. The analysis involved twelve commercial banks...

Uncertainty in economics is generated by 'nature' but also by the model we use to 'produce the future'. The production of the future comprises besides the allocation of resources on different instruments (technologies, financial products) also the design of the instruments. Specialization and...

This paper explores how changes in macroeconomic uncertainty have affected the decision to reply to the European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters (ECB's SPF). The results suggest that higher (lower) aggregate uncertainty increases (reduces) non-response to the survey. This...

We study Aumann and Serrano's (2008) risk index for sums of gambles that are not dependent. If the dependent parts are similarly ordered, then the risk index of the sum is always larger than the minimum of the risk indices of the two gambles. For negative dependence, the risk index of the sum is...

This research aims to achieve a better understanding of the modes of conceptualization and thinking on issues of governance. It is part of a cognitive approach, to our knowledge unprecedented. This research has shown that the mapping concepts of governance can provide the original performance...

In this paper, expected utility, defined by a Taylor series expansion around expected wealth, is maximized. The coefficient of relative risk aversion (CRRA) that is commensurate with a 100% investment in the risky asset is simulated. The following parameters are varied: the riskless return, the...

A longstanding question in the study of energy demand concerns the role of information as a determinant of home efficiency improvements. Although the provision of information via energy audits is frequently asserted to be an effective means for governments to encourage the implementation of...

A crucial assumption in the optimal auction literature is that each bidder's valuation is known to be drawn from a unique distribution. In this paper we study the optimal auction problem allowing for ambiguity about the distribution of valuations. Agents may be ambiguity averse (modeled using...