IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/econom/v162y2011i1p6-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Global identification of risk preferences with revealed preference data

Author

Listed:
  • Just, Richard E.
  • Just, David R.

Abstract

The concept of parameter identification (for a given specification) is differentiated from global identification (which specification is right). First-order conditions for production under risk are shown to admit many alternative specification pairs representing risk preferences and either perceived price risk, production risk, or the deterministic production structure. Imposing an arbitrary specification on any of the latter three determines which risk preference specification fits a given dataset, undermining global identification even when parameter identification is suggested by typical statistics. This lack of identification is not relaxed by increasing the number of observations. Critical implications for estimation of mean-variance specifications are derived.

Suggested Citation

  • Just, Richard E. & Just, David R., 2011. "Global identification of risk preferences with revealed preference data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 162(1), pages 6-17, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:econom:v:162:y:2011:i:1:p:6-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-4076(09)00257-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Atanu Saha & C. Richard Shumway & Hovav Talpaz, 1994. "Joint Estimation of Risk Preference Structure and Technology Using Expo-Power Utility," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 76(2), pages 173-184.
    2. Richard E. Just & Quinn Weninger, 1999. "Are Crop Yields Normally Distributed?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(2), pages 287-304.
    3. Diebold, Francis X & Nerlove, Marc, 1989. "The Dynamics of Exchange Rate Volatility: A Multivariate Latent Factor Arch Model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(1), pages 1-21, Jan.-Mar..
    4. Frankfurter, George M. & Phillips, Herbert E. & Seagle, John P., 1971. "Portfolio Selection: The Effects of Uncertain Means, Variances, and Covariances," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(5), pages 1251-1262, December.
    5. Chavas, Jean-Paul & Pope, Rulon, 1985. "Price uncertainty and competitive firm behavior: Testable hypotheses from expected utility maximization," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 223-235, August.
    6. Smith, Vernon L, 1982. "Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 923-955, December.
    7. Lawrence J. Lau & Pan A. Yotopoulos, 1972. "Profit, Supply, and Factor Demand Functions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 54(1), pages 11-18.
    8. Menezes, C F & Hanson, D L, 1970. "On the Theory of Risk Aversion," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 11(3), pages 481-487, October.
    9. Amemiya, Yasuo, 1985. "Instrumental variable estimator for the nonlinear errors-in-variables model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 273-289, June.
    10. John D. Hey & Chris Orme, 2018. "Investigating Generalizations Of Expected Utility Theory Using Experimental Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Experiments in Economics Decision Making and Markets, chapter 3, pages 63-98, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. C. J. O'Donnell & W. E. Griffiths, 2006. "Estimating State-Contingent Production Frontiers," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(1), pages 249-266.
    12. Rulon D. Pope & Richard E. Just, 2002. "Random Profits and Duality," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(1), pages 1-7.
    13. Binswanger, Hans P, 1981. "Attitudes toward Risk: Theoretical Implications of an Experiment in Rural India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(364), pages 867-890, December.
    14. Jean-Paul Chavas, 2008. "On the economics of agricultural production ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 52(4), pages 365-380, December.
    15. Just, Richard E. & Pope, Rulon D., 1978. "Stochastic specification of production functions and economic implications," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 67-86, February.
    16. Just, Richard E, 1977. "Existence of Stable Distributed Lags," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(6), pages 1467-1480, September.
    17. Jean-Paul Chavas, 2008. "A Cost Approach to Economic Analysis Under State-Contingent Production Uncertainty," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(2), pages 435-466.
    18. Sandmo, Agnar, 1971. "On the Theory of the Competitive Firm under Price Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 65-73, March.
    19. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    20. Pope, Rulon D, 1980. "The Generalized Envelope Theorem and Price Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 21(1), pages 75-86, February.
    21. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    22. Chavas, Jean-Paul & Holt, Matthew T, 1996. "Economic Behavior under Uncertainty: A Joint Analysis of Risk Preferences and Technology," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 329-335, May.
    23. Chambers,Robert G. & Quiggin,John, 2000. "Uncertainty, Production, Choice, and Agency," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521785235.
    24. Shanken, Jay, 1990. "Intertemporal asset pricing : An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 99-120.
    25. Pope, Rulon D., 1988. "A new parametric test for the structure of risk preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 117-121.
    26. Richard E. Just & Linda Calvin & John Quiggin, 1999. "Adverse Selection in Crop Insurance: Actuarial and Asymmetric Information Incentives," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(4), pages 834-849.
    27. Andersen, Torben G. & Bollerslev, Tim & Diebold, Francis X. & Ebens, Heiko, 2001. "The distribution of realized stock return volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 43-76, July.
    28. H. Alan Love & Steven T. Buccola, 1991. "Joint Risk Preference-Technology Estimation with a Primal System," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(3), pages 765-774.
    29. John M. Antle & Stephen A. Hatchett, 1986. "Dynamic Input Decisions in Econometric Production Models," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 68(4), pages 939-949.
    30. Pope, Rulon D. & Just, Richard E., 1996. "Empirical implementation of ex ante cost functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1-2), pages 231-249.
    31. Meyer, Jack, 1987. "Two-moment Decision Models and Expected Utility Maximization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 421-430, June.
    32. Bollerslev, Tim & Chou, Ray Y. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1992. "ARCH modeling in finance : A review of the theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 5-59.
    33. Barry T. Coyle, 1999. "Risk Aversion and Yield Uncertainty in Duality Models of Production: A Mean-Variance Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(3), pages 553-567.
    34. Machina, Mark J, 1987. "Choice under Uncertainty: Problems Solved and Unsolved," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 121-154, Summer.
    35. Richard E. Just, 1975. "Risk Aversion under Profit Maximization," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 57(2), pages 347-352.
    36. Mundlak, Yair, 1996. "Production Function Estimation: Reviving the Primal," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 431-438, March.
    37. Elie Appelbaum & Ulrich Kohli, 1997. "Import Price Uncertainty And The Distribution Of Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 620-630, November.
    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. Sébastien Foudi, 2012. "Exploitation of soil biota ecosystem services in agriculture: a bioeconomic approach," Working Papers 2012-02, BC3.
    2. Carbajal De Nova, Carolina, 2017. "Synthetic data. A proposed method for applied risk management," MPRA Paper 77978, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 28 Mar 2017.
    3. Viaggi, Davide & Raggi, Meri & Gomez y Paloma, Sergio, 2011. "Farm-household investment behaviour and the CAP decoupling: Methodological issues in assessing policy impacts," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 127-145, January.
    4. Bougherara, Douadia & Nauges, Céline, 2018. "How laboratory experiments could help disentangle the influences of production risk and risk preferences on input decisions," TSE Working Papers 18-903, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Wu, Feng & Guan, Zhengfei, 2014. "Efficient Estimation of Risk Attitude with Seminonparametric Risk Modeling," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170625, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Cao, Ruixuan & Carpentier, Alain & Gohin, Alexandre, 2011. "Measuring farmers’ risk aversion: the unknown properties of the value function," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114623, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Bontemps, Christophe & Bougherara, Douadia & Nauges, Céline, 2020. "Do Risk Preferences Really Matter? The Case of Pesticide Use in Agriculture," TSE Working Papers 20-1095, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    8. Martina Bozzola & Robert Finger, 2021. "Stability of risk attitude, agricultural policies and production shocks: evidence from Italy," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 48(3), pages 477-501.
    9. Aleksandr Anatolyevich Kuklin & Aleksandr Nikolaevich Tyrsin & Maria Sergeevna Pecherkina & Natalia Leonidovna Nikulina, 2018. "Risk Diagnostics and Management for Welfare in Regions (in the Example of the Ural Federal District)," Spatial Economics=Prostranstvennaya Ekonomika, Economic Research Institute, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (Khabarovsk, Russia), issue 2, pages 36-51.
    10. Sidibé, Yoro & Foudi, Sébastien & Pascual, Unai & Termansen, Mette, 2018. "Adaptation to Climate Change in Rainfed Agriculture in the Global South: Soil Biodiversity as Natural Insurance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 588-596.
    11. Nauges, Céline & Bougherara, Douadia & Koussoubé, Estelle, 2021. "Fertilizer use and risk: New evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," TSE Working Papers 21-1266, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    12. Sabine Liebenehm & Ingmar Schumacher & Eric Strobl, 2024. "Rainfall shocks and risk aversion: Evidence from Southeast Asia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 106(1), pages 145-176, January.
    13. De Nova, Carolina Carbajal, 2021. "Synthetic data. A novel proposed method for applied risk management," 95th Annual Conference, March 29-30, 2021, Warwick, UK (Hybrid) 311085, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.
    14. Elie Appelbaum & Ulrich Kohli, 1997. "Import Price Uncertainty And The Distribution Of Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 620-630, November.
    15. Carpentier, A. & Reboud, X., 2018. "Why farmers consider pesticides the ultimate in crop protection: economic and behavioral insights," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277528, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Alain Carpentier & Alexandre Gohin, 2015. "On the economic theory of crop rotations: value of the crop rotation effects and implications on acreage choice modeling," Working Papers SMART 15-04, INRAE UMR SMART.
    17. Antti Saastamoinen, 2015. "Heteroscedasticity Or Production Risk? A Synthetic View," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 459-478, July.
    18. Alexander Tsyganov & Nadezda Kirillova, 2018. "Regional Aspect of the Russian Insurance Market," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(4), pages 1270-1281.
    19. Aleksandr Kuklin & Maria Pecherkina & Alexander Tyrsin & Alfiya Surina, 2017. "Methodological Tools for the Detection of Risks to the Welfare of the Individuals and the Territory of Residence," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(4), pages 1030-1043.
    20. Luigi Biagini & Simone Severini, 2022. "How Does the Farmer Strike a Balance between Income and Risk across Inputs? An Application in Italian Field Crop Farms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-15, December.
    21. Moro, Daniele & Sckokai, Paolo, 2013. "The impact of decoupled payments on farm choices: Conceptual and methodological challenges," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 28-38.

    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. Just, Richard E., 2000. "Some Guiding Principles for Empirical Production Research in Agriculture," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(2), pages 138-158, October.
    2. Just, Richard E., 2003. "Risk research in agricultural economics: opportunities and challenges for the next twenty-five years," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 75(2-3), pages 123-159.
    3. Z. Bar‐Shira & R.E. Just & D. Zilberman, 1997. "Estimation of farmers' risk attitude: an econometric approach," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 17(2-3), pages 211-222, December.
    4. Just, David R., 2011. "Calibrating the wealth effects of decoupled payments: Does decreasing absolute risk aversion matter?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 162(1), pages 25-34, May.
    5. Moro, Daniele & Sckokai, Paolo, 2013. "The impact of decoupled payments on farm choices: Conceptual and methodological challenges," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 28-38.
    6. Robert G. Chambers & Margarita Genius & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2021. "Invariant Risk Preferences and Supply Response under Price Risk," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(5), pages 1802-1819, October.
    7. Philippe Bontems & Celine Nauges, 2019. "Production choices with water markets and risk aversion: the role of initial allocations and forward trading," Post-Print hal-02349932, HAL.
    8. Liu, Yucan & Shumway, C. Richard, 2005. "Indirect Utility Maximization under Risk: A Heterogeneous Panel Application," 2005 Annual Meeting, July 6-8, 2005, San Francisco, California 36307, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    9. Jesse Tack & Rulon Pope & Jeffrey LaFrance & Timothy Graciano & Scott Colby, 2012. "Intertemporal Risk Management in Agriculture," Monash Economics Working Papers 16-12, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    10. Hurley, Terrance M., 2010. "A review of agricultural production risk in the developing world," Working Papers 188476, HarvestChoice.
    11. Agabriel, Jacques & Lherm, Michel & Mosnier, Claire & Reynaud, Arnaud & Thomas, Alban, 2009. "Estimating a Production Function under Production and Output Price Risks: An Application to Beef Cattle in France," TSE Working Papers 09-046, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    12. Mitchell, Paul David, 1999. "The theory and practice of green insurance: insurance to encourage the adoption of corn rootworm IPM," ISU General Staff Papers 1999010108000013154, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    13. Shankar, Sriram, 2012. "Production economics in the presence of risk," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 56(4), pages 1-24, December.
    14. Orea, Luis, 2019. "The Econometric Measurement of Firms’ Efficiency," Efficiency Series Papers 2019/02, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    15. Jeffrey LaFrance & Rulon Pope & Jesse Tack, 2011. "Risk Response in Agriculture," NBER Chapters, in: The Intended and Unintended Effects of US Agricultural and Biotechnology Policies, pages 143-186, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Elie Appelbaum, 2000. "Estimating the firm's demand and supply functions under uncertainty without expected utility," Working Papers 2000_5, York University, Department of Economics.
    17. Lence, Sergio H., 2008. "How Much Can We Learn About Producers' Utility Functions from Their Production Data?," 2008 Agricultural and Rural Finance Markets in Transition, September 25-26, 2008, Kansas City, Missouri 119534, Regional Research Committee NC-1014: Agricultural and Rural Finance Markets in Transition.
    18. David S. Bullock & Philip Garcia & Kie‐Yup Shin, 2005. "Measuring producer welfare under output price uncertainty and risk non‐neutrality," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 49(1), pages 1-21, March.
    19. Ragnar Tveteras & Ola Flaten & Gudbrand Lien, 2011. "Production risk in multi-output industries: estimates from Norwegian dairy farms," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(28), pages 4403-4414.
    20. Subal Kumbhakar & Efthymios Tsionas, 2010. "Estimation of production risk and risk preference function: a nonparametric approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 369-378, April.

    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:econom:v:162:y:2011:i:1:p:6-17. 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/jeconom .

    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.