| 来源类型 | Working Paper |
| 规范类型 | 报告 |
| DOI | 10.3386/w23294 |
| 来源ID | Working Paper 23294 |
| Risk Aversion as a Perceptual Bias | |
| Mel Win Khaw; Ziang Li; Michael Woodford | |
| 发表日期 | 2017-04-03 |
| 出版年 | 2017 |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| 摘要 | The theory of expected utility maximization (EUM) explains risk aversion as due to diminishing marginal utility of wealth. However, observed choices between risky lotteries are difficult to reconcile with EUM: for example, in the laboratory, subjects' responses on individual trials involve a random element, and cannot be predicted purely from the terms offered; and subjects often appear to be too risk averse with regard to small gambles (while still accepting sufficiently favorable large gambles) to be consistent with any utility-of-wealth function. We propose a unified explanation for both anomalies, similar to the explanation given for related phenomena in the case of perceptual judgments: they result from judgments based on imprecise (and noisy) mental representation of the decision situation. In this model, risk aversion is predicted without any need for a nonlinear utility-of-wealth function, and instead results from a sort of perceptual bias — but one that represents an optimal Bayesian decision, given the limitations of the mental representation of the situation. We propose a specific quantitative model of the mental representation of a simple lottery choice problem, based on other evidence regarding numerical cognition, and test its ability to explain the choice frequencies that we observe in a laboratory experiment. |
| 主题 | Econometrics ; Experimental Design ; Microeconomics ; Market Structure and Distribution ; Economics of Information |
| URL | https://www.nber.org/papers/w23294 |
| 来源智库 | National Bureau of Economic Research (United States) |
| 引用统计 | |
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/580968 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Mel Win Khaw,Ziang Li,Michael Woodford. Risk Aversion as a Perceptual Bias. 2017. |
| 条目包含的文件 | ||||||
| 文件名称/大小 | 资源类型 | 版本类型 | 开放类型 | 使用许可 | ||
| w23294.pdf（953KB） | 智库出版物 | 限制开放 | CC BY-NC-SA | 浏览 | ||
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