IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jrp/jrpwrp/2009-088.html

Understanding the Two Components of Risk Attitudes: An Experimental Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Jianying Qiu

    (Department of Economics, University of Innsbruck)

  • Eva-Maria Steiger

    (Stratigic Interaction Group, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)

Abstract

Economics and management science share the tradition of ordering risk aversion by ï¬ tting the best expected utility (EU) model with a certain utility function to individual data, and then using the utility curvature for each individual as the sole index of risk attitude. (Cumulative) Prospect theory (CPT) has demonstrated various empirical deï¬ ciencies of EU and introduced the weighting of probabilities as an additional component to capture risk attitude. However, if utility curvature and probability weighting were strongly correlated, the utility curvature in EU alone, while not properly describing risky behavior in general, would still capture most of the variance regarding degrees of risk aversion. This study shows, however, that such a strong correlation does not exist. Though, most individuals exhibit concave utility and convex probability weighting, the two components show no correlation. Thus neglecting one component entails a loss.

Suggested Citation

  • Jianying Qiu & Eva-Maria Steiger, 2009. "Understanding the Two Components of Risk Attitudes: An Experimental Analysis," Jena Economics Research Papers 2009-088, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    • Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2009-088
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://oweb.b67.uni-jena.de/Papers/jerp2009/wp_2009_088.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Matyska, Branka, 2021. "Salience, systemic risk and spectral risk measures as capital requirements," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Herold, Florian & Netzer, Nick, 2023. "Second-best probability weighting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 112-125.
    4. Renata S Suter & Thorsten Pachur & Ralph Hertwig & Tor Endestad & Guido Biele, 2015. "The Neural Basis of Risky Choice with Affective Outcomes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, April.
    5. Özalp Özer & Yanchong Zheng, 2016. "Markdown or Everyday Low Price? The Role of Behavioral Motives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 326-346, February.
    6. Gijs van de Kuilen & Peter P. Wakker, 2011. "The Midweight Method to Measure Attitudes Toward Risk and Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 582-598, March.
    7. Matthew D. Rablen, 2023. "Loss Aversion, Risk Aversion, and the Shape of the Probability Weighting Function," Working Papers 2023013, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    8. Ilke Aydogan & Yu Gao, 2020. "Experience and rationality under risk: re-examining the impact of sampling experience," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(4), pages 1100-1128, December.
    9. Han Bleichrodt & Jason N. Doctor & Yu Gao & Chen Li & Daniella Meeker & Peter P. Wakker, 2019. "Resolving Rabin’s paradox," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 239-260, December.
    10. Zhihua Li & Julia Müller & Peter P. Wakker & Tong V. Wang, 2018. "The Rich Domain of Ambiguity Explored," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3227-3240, July.
    11. Qiu, Jianying & Ong, Qiyan, 2017. "Indifference or indecisiveness: a strict discrimination," MPRA Paper 81790, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Sep 2017.
    12. van Bruggen, Paul & Laeven, Roger J. A. & van de Kuilen, Gijs, 2024. "Higher-Order Risk Attitudes for Non-Expected Utility," Discussion Paper 2024-019, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    13. Alam, Jessica & Georgalos, Konstantinos & Rolls, Harrison, 2022. "Risk preferences, gender effects and Bayesian econometrics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 168-183.
    14. Michał Krawczyk, 2014. "Probability weighting in different domains: the role of stakes, fungibility, and affect," Working Papers 2014-15, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    15. Qiu, Jianying & Weitzel, Utz, 2013. "Experimental Evidence on Valuation and Learning with Multiple Priors," MPRA Paper 43974, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Olivier Toubia & Eric Johnson & Theodoros Evgeniou & Philippe Delquié, 2013. "Dynamic Experiments for Estimating Preferences: An Adaptive Method of Eliciting Time and Risk Parameters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(3), pages 613-640, June.
    17. Festjens, Anouk & Bruyneel, Sabrina & Diecidue, Enrico & Dewitte, Siegfried, 2015. "Time-based versus money-based decision making under risk: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 52-72.
    18. Liu Shi & Jianying Qiu & Jiangyan Li & Frank Bohn, 2024. "Consciously stochastic in preference reversals," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 255-297, June.
    19. Rablen, Matthew D., 2019. "Foundations of the Rank-Dependent Probability Weighting Function," IZA Discussion Papers 12701, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:jrp:jrpwrp:2009-088. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Markus Pasche (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jenecon.de .

    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.