Fear of ruin and longevity enhancing investment

Rectangularization of the survival probability seems to be an ongoing process. It results from a higher concentration of the ages at death; but it can be reversed by a continuous increase in the limit of life time. In this paper, we assume that these two factors are endogenous and we show that risk averse decision makers exhibit a bias towards rectangularization. More specifically, the importance of the bias depends upon the intensity of the "fear of ruin" which is another measure of the degree of absolute risk aversion.longevity, fear of ruin

Putting Risk in its Proper Place

This paper examines preferences towards particular classes of lottery pairs. We show how concepts such as prudence and temperance can be fully characterized by a preference relation over these lotteries. If preferences are defined in an expected-utility framework with differentiable utility, the direction of preference for a particular class of lottery pairs is equivalent to signing the nth derivative of the utility function. What makes our characterization appealing is its simplicity, which seems particularly amenable to experimentation.properness, prudence, risk apportionment, risk aversion, stochastic dominance, temperance, utility premium

Changes in Risk and the Demand for Saving

How does risk affect saving? Empirical work typically examines the effects of detectible differences in risk within the data. How these differences affect saving in theoretical models depends on the metric one uses for risk. For labor-income risk, second-degree increases in risk require prudence to induce increased saving demand. However, prudence is not necessary for first-degree risk increases and not sufficient for higher-degree risk increases. For increases in interest rate risk, a precautionary effect and a substitution effect need to be compared. This paper provides necessary and sufficient conditions on preferences for an Nth-degree change in risk to increase saving.precautionary saving, prudence, stochastic dominance, temperance

Apportioning of Risks via Stochastic Dominance

Consider a simple two-state risk with equal probabilities for the two states. In particular, assume that the random wealth variable Xi dominates Yi via ith-order stochastic dominance for i = M,N. We show that the 50-50 lottery [XN + YM, YN + XM] dominates the lottery [XN + XM, YN + YM] via (N + M)th-order stochastic dominance. The basic idea is that a decision maker exhibiting (N + M)th-order stochastic dominance preference will allocate the state-contingent lotteries in such a way as not to group the two "bad" lotteries in the same state, where "bad" is defined via ith-order stochastic dominance. In this way, we can extend and generalize existing results about risk attitudes. This lottery preference includes behavior exhibiting higher order risk effects, such as precautionary effects and tempering effects.downside risk, precautionary effects, prudence, risk apportionment, risk aversion, stochastic dominance, temperance

A Good Sign for Multivariate Risk Taking

Decisions under risk are often multidimensional, where the preferences of the decision maker depend on several attributes. For example, an individual might be concerned about both her level of wealth and the condition of her health. Many times the signs of successive cross derivatives of a utility function play an important role in these models. However, there has not been a simple and intuitive interpretation for the meaning of such derivatives. The purpose of this paper is to give such an interpretation. In particular, we provide an equivalence between the signs of these cross derivatives and individual preference within a particular class of simple lotteries.correlation aversion, multivariate risk, prudence, risk aversion, temperance

A benchmark value for relative prudence

In this paper we propose benchmark values for the coefficients of relative risk aversion and relative prudence on the basis of a binary choice model where the decision maker chooses between aggregating or disaggragating multiplicative risks. We relate our results to the decison maker's willingness to trade-off the second with the first and the third (central) moment of his wealthdistribution.relative risk aversion, relative prudence