IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v208y2021ics0165176521003293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prevention as a Giffen good

Author

Listed:
  • Peter, Richard

Abstract

A criterion is provided for prevention to be a Giffen good. Under decreasing absolute risk aversion, prevention can only be Giffen if the loss probability is below an endogenous threshold value. For iso-elastic utility, this is possible but not empirically plausible.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter, Richard, 2021. "Prevention as a Giffen good," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:208:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521003293
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.110052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176521003293
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.110052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruno Jullien & Bernard Salanié & François Salanié, 1999. "Should More Risk-Averse Agents Exert More Effort?," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 24(1), pages 19-28, June.
    2. Battalio, Raymond C & Kagel, John H & Kogut, Carl A, 1991. "Experimental Confirmation of the Existence of a Giffen Good," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 961-970, September.
    3. Alma Cohen & Liran Einav, 2007. "Estimating Risk Preferences from Deductible Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 745-788, June.
    4. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 2002. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 47-89, January.
    5. Raj Chetty, 2006. "A New Method of Estimating Risk Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1821-1834, December.
    6. Richard Peter, 2021. "A fresh look at primary prevention for health risks," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1247-1254, May.
    7. Joseph Eisenhauer & Martin Halek, 1999. "Prudence, risk aversion, and the demand for life insurance," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(4), pages 239-242.
    8. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    9. Matteo Iacoviello, 2011. "Housing wealth and consumption," International Finance Discussion Papers 1027, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Joseph Eisenhauer, 1997. "Risk aversion, wealth, and the DARA hypothesis: A new test," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 3(1), pages 46-53, February.
    11. Ehrlich, Isaac & Becker, Gary S, 1972. "Market Insurance, Self-Insurance, and Self-Protection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(4), pages 623-648, July-Aug..
    12. W Henry Chiu, 2010. "Skewness Preference, Risk Taking and Expected Utility Maximisation," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 35(2), pages 108-129, December.
    13. Mario Menegatti, 2012. "New results on optimal prevention of risk averse agents," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(3), pages 2166-2173.
    14. Robert T. Jensen & Nolan H. Miller, 2008. "Giffen Behavior and Subsistence Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1553-1577, September.
    15. Levy, Haim, 1994. "Absolute and Relative Risk Aversion: An Experimental Study," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 289-307, May.
    16. Briys, Eric & Dionne, Georges & Eeckhoudt, Louis, 1989. "More on Insurance as a Giffen Good," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 2(4), pages 415-420, December.
    17. Richard Peter, 2021. "Who should exert more effort? Risk aversion, downside risk aversion and optimal prevention," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1259-1281, June.
    18. Mario Menegatti, 2021. "Subsidizing risk prevention," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 134(2), pages 175-193, October.
    19. George J. Stigler, 1947. "Notes on the History of the Giffen Paradox," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55, pages 152-152.
    20. Donald Meyer & Jack Meyer, 2005. "Relative Risk Aversion: What Do We Know?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 243-262, December.
    21. Arthur Hau, 2008. "When Is a Coinsurance‐Type Insurance Policy Inferior or Even Giffen?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 343-364, June.
    22. Koenker, Roger, 1977. "Was Bread Giffen? The Demand for Food in England Circa 1790," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 59(2), pages 225-229, May.
    23. Ebert, Sebastian, 2015. "On skewed risks in economic models and experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 85-97.
    24. Fagart, Marie-Cécile & Fluet, Claude, 2013. "The first-order approach when the cost of effort is money," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 7-16.
    25. Kihlstrom, Richard E & Romer, David & Williams, Steve, 1981. "Risk Aversion with Random Initial Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 911-920, June.
    26. Justin Sydnor, 2010. "(Over)insuring Modest Risks," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 177-199, October.
    27. Saurabh Bhargava & George Loewenstein & Justin Sydnor, 2017. "Choose to Lose: Health Plan Choices from a Menu with Dominated Option," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1319-1372.
    28. Hoy, Michael & Robson, Arthur J., 1981. "Insurance as a Giffen good," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 47-51.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. Francois Outreville, 2014. "Risk Aversion, Risk Behavior, and Demand for Insurance: A Survey," Journal of Insurance Issues, Western Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 37(2), pages 158-186.
    2. Benjamin L. Collier & Daniel Schwartz & Howard C. Kunreuther & Erwann O. Michel‐Kerjan, 2022. "Insuring large stakes: A normative and descriptive analysis of households' flood insurance coverage," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(2), pages 273-310, June.
    3. Marc A. Ragin & Benjamin L. Collier & Johannes G. Jaspersen, 2021. "The effect of information disclosure on demand for high‐load insurance," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 161-193, March.
    4. J. François Outreville, 2015. "The Relationship Between Relative Risk Aversion And The Level Of Education: A Survey And Implications For The Demand For Life Insurance," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 97-111, February.
    5. Dionne, Georges & Harrington, Scott, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    6. Johannes G. Jaspersen & Marc A. Ragin & Justin R. Sydnor, 2019. "Predicting Insurance Demand from Risk Attitudes," NBER Working Papers 26508, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Benjamin L. Collier & Daniel Schwartz & Howard C. Kunreuther & Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan, 2017. "Risk Preferences in Small and Large Stakes: Evidence from Insurance Contract Decisions," NBER Working Papers 23579, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Johannes G. Jaspersen & Marc A. Ragin & Justin R. Sydnor, 2022. "Predicting insurance demand from risk attitudes," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(1), pages 63-96, March.
    9. Heinzel Christoph & Richard Peter, 2021. "Precautionary motives with multiple instruments," Working Papers SMART 21-09, INRAE UMR SMART.
    10. Berger, Loïc & Bosetti, Valentina, 2020. "Characterizing ambiguity attitudes using model uncertainty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 621-637.
    11. Yochanan Shachmurove & Janusz Szyrmer, 2011. "Sir Robert Giffen Meets Russia in Early 1990s," PIER Working Paper Archive 11-020, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    12. Richard Watt & Henri Loubergé, 2005. "On the Demand for Budget Constrained Insurance," FAME Research Paper Series rp137, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    13. Han Bleichrodt, 2022. "The prevention puzzle," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 47(2), pages 277-297, September.
    14. Glenn W. Harrison & Jia Min Ng, 2016. "Evaluating The Expected Welfare Gain From Insurance," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 83(1), pages 91-120, January.
    15. Henri Loubergé, 1998. "Risk and Insurance Economics 25 Years After," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 23(4), pages 540-567, October.
    16. Christoph Heinzel & Richard Peter, 2021. "Precautionary motives with multiple instruments [Motifs de précaution en cas de multiples instruments]," Working Papers hal-03484875, HAL.
    17. Heinzel, Christoph & Peter, Richard, 2021. "Precautionary motives with multiple instruments," Working Papers 316521, Institut National de la recherche Agronomique (INRA), Departement Sciences Sociales, Agriculture et Alimentation, Espace et Environnement (SAE2).
    18. Sergio Sousa, 2010. "Small-scale changes in wealth and attitudes toward risk," Discussion Papers 2010-11, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    19. Giovanni Millo & Gaetano Carmeci, 2011. "Non-life insurance consumption in Italy: a sub-regional panel data analysis," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 273-298, September.
    20. Patricia H. Born & E. Tice Sirmans, 2019. "Regret in health insurance post‐purchase behavior," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 207-219, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Prevention; Self-protection; Giffen good; Risk aversion; Comparative statics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:208:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521003293. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.