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Even Risk-Averters May Love Risk

Author

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  • Marco Scarsini

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Aziendali - LUISS - Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli [Roma])

  • Alfred Muller

Abstract

A decision maker bets on the outcomes of a sequence of coin-tossings. At the beginning of the game the decision maker can choose one of two coins to play the game. This initial choice is irreversible. The coins can be biased and the player is uncertain about the nature of one (or possibly both) coin(s). If the player is an expected-utility maximizer, her choice of the coin will depend on different elements: the nature of the game (namely, whether she can observe the outcomes of the previous tosses before making her next decision), her utility function, the prior distribution on the bias of the coin. We will show that even a risk averter might optimally choose a riskier coin when learning is allowed. We will express most of our results in the language of stochastic orderings, allowing comparisons that are valid for large classes of utility functions.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Scarsini & Alfred Muller, 2002. "Even Risk-Averters May Love Risk," Post-Print hal-00539830, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00539830
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1015513000587
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    2. Trautmann, Stefan T. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2013. "Shunning uncertainty: The neglect of learning opportunities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 44-55.

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