IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v71y2017icp20-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Utility of wealth with many indivisibilities

Author

Listed:
  • Vasquez, Markus

Abstract

We introduce a class of utility of wealth functions, called knapsack utility functions, which are appropriate for agents who must choose an optimal collection of indivisible goods subject to a spending constraint. We investigate the concavity/convexity and regularity properties of these functions. We find that convexity–and thus a demand for gambling–is the norm, but that the incentive to gamble is more pronounced at low wealth levels. We consider an intertemporal version of the problem in which the agent faces a credit constraint. We find that the agent’s utility of wealth function closely resembles a knapsack utility function when the agent’s saving rate is low.

Suggested Citation

  • Vasquez, Markus, 2017. "Utility of wealth with many indivisibilities," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 20-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:71:y:2017:i:c:p:20-27
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2017.03.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406816301252
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2017.03.005?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. Roger Hartley & Lisa Farrell, 2002. "Can Expected Utility Theory Explain Gambling?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 613-624, June.
    2. Dobbs, Ian M, 1988. "Risk Aversion, Gambling and the Labour-Leisure Choice," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 35(2), pages 171-175, May.
    3. Vicky Henderson & David Hobson, 2013. "Risk Aversion, Indivisible Timing Options, and Gambling," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 126-137, February.
    4. Nils H. Hakansson, 1970. "Friedman-Savage Utility Functions Consistent with Risk Aversion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 472-487.
    5. Appelbaum, Elie & Katz, Eliakim, 1981. "Market Constraints as a Rationale for the Friedman-Savage Utility Function," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 819-825, August.
    6. Ng Yew Kwang, 1965. "Why do People Buy Lottery Tickets? Choices Involving Risk and the Indivisibility of Expenditure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73, pages 530-530.
    7. Bailey, Martin J & Olson, Mancur & Wonnacott, Paul, 1980. "The Marginal Utility of Income Does not Increase: Borrowing, Lending, and Friedman-Savage Gambles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 372-379, June.
    8. Milton Friedman & L. J. Savage, 1948. "The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56, pages 279-279.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fels, Markus, 2019. "Risk attitudes with state-dependent indivisibilities in consumption," Ruhr Economic Papers 805, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    2. Fels, Markus, 2021. "Why Do People Buy Insurance? A Modern Answer to an Old Question," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242418, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    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. Nyman, John A. & Welte, John W. & Dowd, Bryan E., 2008. "Something for nothing: A model of gambling behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2492-2504, December.
    2. Roger Hartley & Lisa Farrell, 2002. "Can Expected Utility Theory Explain Gambling?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 613-624, June.
    3. Gong, Xiaodong & Zhu, Rong, 2019. "Cognitive abilities, non-cognitive skills, and gambling behaviors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 51-69.
    4. Coelho, Philip R. P. & McClure, James E., 1998. "Social context and the utility of wealth: Addressing the Markowitz challenge," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 305-314, November.
    5. Fels, Markus, 2019. "Risk attitudes with state-dependent indivisibilities in consumption," Ruhr Economic Papers 805, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    6. Machina, Mark J, 1982. ""Expected Utility" Analysis without the Independence Axiom," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 277-323, March.
    7. N. Bhattacharya & T. A. Garrett, 2008. "Why people choose negative expected return assets - an empirical examination of a utility theoretic explanation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 27-34.
    8. Alain Bensoussan & Abel Cadenillas & Hyeng Keun Koo, 2015. "Entrepreneurial Decisions on Effort and Project with a Nonconcave Objective Function," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 40(4), pages 902-914, October.
    9. Fels, Markus, 2021. "Why Do People Buy Insurance? A Modern Answer to an Old Question," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242418, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Crossley, Thomas F. & Low, Hamish & Smith, Sarah, 2016. "Do consumers gamble to convexify?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 276-291.
    11. Per Binde, 2005. "Gambling Across Cultures: Mapping Worldwide Occurrence and Learning from Ethnographic Comparison," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1-27, June.
    12. Douglas W. Blackburn & William N. Goetzmann & Andrey D. Ukhov, 2009. "Risk Aversion and Clientele Effects," NBER Working Papers 15333, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gregory G. Brunk, 1981. "A Test of the Friedman-Savage Gambling Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 96(2), pages 341-348.
    14. Douglas W. Blackburn & Andrey D. Ukhov, 2013. "Individual vs. Aggregate Preferences: The Case of a Small Fish in a Big Pond," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 470-484, August.
    15. Raj Chetty, 2004. "Consumption Commitments, Unemployment Durations, and Local Risk Aversion," NBER Working Papers 10211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Brennan C. Platt & Joseph Price & Henry Tappen, 2013. "The Role of Risk Preferences in Pay-to-Bid Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 2117-2134, September.
    17. Travis J. Lybbert & Christopher B. Barrett, 2011. "Risk‐Taking Behavior In The Presence Of Nonconvex Asset Dynamics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(4), pages 982-988, October.
    18. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: An Annotated Bibliography," Working Papers 1110, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    19. Brad Taylor, 2013. "Analytic radicalism," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 166-172, June.
    20. Bachar FAKHRY, 2016. "A Literature Review of the Efficient Market Hypothesis," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 431-442, September.

    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:mateco:v:71:y:2017:i:c:p:20-27. 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/jmateco .

    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.