IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v76y2012i2p582-595.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When does aggregation reduce risk aversion?

Author

Listed:
  • Chambers, Christopher P.
  • Echenique, Federico

Abstract

We study the problem of risk sharing within a household or syndicate. A household shares risky prospects using a social welfare functional. We characterize the social welfare functionals such that the household is collectively less risk averse than each member, and satisfies the Pareto principle and an invariance axiom. We single out the sum of certainty equivalents as the unique member of this family which is quasiconcave over riskless allocations.

Suggested Citation

  • Chambers, Christopher P. & Echenique, Federico, 2012. "When does aggregation reduce risk aversion?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 582-595.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:76:y:2012:i:2:p:582-595
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2012.07.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825612001212
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2012.07.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Peter Klibanoff & Massimo Marinacci & Sujoy Mukerji, 2005. "A Smooth Model of Decision Making under Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1849-1892, November.
    2. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2006. "Ambiguity Aversion, Robustness, and the Variational Representation of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1447-1498, November.
    3. Larry G. Epstein, 2001. "Sharing Ambiguity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 45-50, May.
    4. Christian Gollier, 2001. "Wealth Inequality and Asset Pricing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 181-203.
    5. Chateauneuf, Alain & Faro, José Heleno, 2009. "Ambiguity through confidence functions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(9-10), pages 535-558, September.
    6. Dow, James & Werlang, Sergio Ribeiro da Costa, 1992. "Uncertainty Aversion, Risk Aversion, and the Optimal Choice of Portfolio," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(1), pages 197-204, January.
    7. Ghirardato, Paolo & Marinacci, Massimo, 2002. "Ambiguity Made Precise: A Comparative Foundation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 251-289, February.
    8. Rubinstein, Ariel & Safra, Zvi & Thomson, William, 1992. "On the Interpretation of the Nash Bargaining Solution and Its Extension to Non-expected Utility Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(5), pages 1171-1186, September.
    9. Chateauneuf, Alain & Dana, Rose-Anne & Tallon, Jean-Marc, 2000. "Optimal risk-sharing rules and equilibria with Choquet-expected-utility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 191-214, October.
    10. Chateauneuf, Alain & Cohen, Michele, 1994. "Risk Seeking with Diminishing Marginal Utility in a Non-expected Utility Model," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 77-91, July.
    11. Antoine Billot & Alain Chateauneuf & Itzhak Gilboa & Jean-Marc Tallon, 2000. "Sharing Beliefs: Between Agreeing and Disagreeing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(3), pages 685-694, May.
    12. Epstein, Larry G & Wang, Tan, 1994. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing Under Knightian Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 283-322, March.
    13. Cerreia-Vioglio, S. & Maccheroni, F. & Marinacci, M. & Montrucchio, L., 2011. "Uncertainty averse preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1275-1330, July.
    14. Luca Rigotti & Chris Shannon, 2005. "Uncertainty and Risk in Financial Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 203-243, January.
    15. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    16. Paul A. Samuelson, 1956. "Social Indifference Curves," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 1-22.
    17. Chateauneuf, Alain & Dana, Rose-Anne & Tallon, Jean-Marc, 2000. "Optimal risk-sharing rules and equilibria with Choquet-expected-utility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 191-214, October.
    18. Chipman, John S. & Moore, James C., 1979. "On social welfare functions and the aggregation of preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 111-139, August.
    19. Rose-Anne Dana, 2002. "On Equilibria when Agents Have Multiple Priors," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 105-115, August.
    20. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5456 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Marciano Siniscalchi, 2009. "Vector Expected Utility and Attitudes Toward Variation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 801-855, May.
    22. W. M. Gorman, 1959. "Are Social Indifference Curves Convex?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 73(3), pages 485-496.
    23. Kenneth J. Arrow & Robert C. Lind, 1974. "Uncertainty and the Evaluation of Public Investment Decisions," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 3, pages 54-75, Palgrave Macmillan.
    24. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    25. Yaari, Menahem E., 1969. "Some remarks on measures of risk aversion and on their uses," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 315-329, October.
    26. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5461 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Machina, Mark J & Schmeidler, David, 1992. "A More Robust Definition of Subjective Probability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 745-780, July.
    28. Larry G. Epstein, 1999. "A Definition of Uncertainty Aversion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(3), pages 579-608.
    29. Luca Rigotti & Chris Shannon & Tomasz Strzalecki, 2008. "Subjective Beliefs and ex ante Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(5), pages 1167-1190, September.
    30. Kyoungwon Seo, 2009. "Ambiguity and Second-Order Belief," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1575-1605, September.
    31. Ergin, Haluk & Gul, Faruk, 2009. "A theory of subjective compound lotteries," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 899-929, May.
    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. ,, 2012. "The ex-ante aggregation of opinions under uncertainty," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(3), September.
    2. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier l’Haridon & Corina Paraschiv, 2013. "Individual vs. couple behavior: an experimental investigation of risk preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 175-191, August.
    3. Thierry Marchant, 2019. "Utilitarianism without individual utilities," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(1), pages 1-19, June.
    4. Khan, Urmee & Stinchcombe, Maxwell B., 2018. "Planning for the long run: Programming with patient, Pareto responsive preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 444-478.
    5. Fleurbaey, Marc & Zuber, Stéphane, 2017. "Fair management of social risk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 666-706.
    6. Miyagishima, Kaname, 2023. "Time-consistent fair social choice," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(3), July.
    7. Thibault Gajdos & Jean-Christophe Vergnaud, 2013. "Decisions with conflicting and imprecise information," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(2), pages 427-452, July.
    8. Lutz G. Arnold & Sebastian Zelzner, 2020. "Welfare Effects of the Allocation of Talent to Financial Trading: What Does the Grossman-Stiglitz Model Say?," Working Papers 190, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    9. Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Zuber, 2021. "Universal social welfare orderings and risk," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-03289160, HAL.
    10. Kaname Miyagishima, 2022. "Efficiency, equity, and social rationality under uncertainty," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(1), pages 237-255, February.
    11. Balter, Anne G. & Schweizer, Nikolaus, 2024. "Robust decisions for heterogeneous agents via certainty equivalents," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 317(1), pages 171-184.
    12. Xiangyu Qu, 2017. "Separate aggregation of beliefs and values under ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(2), pages 503-519, February.
    13. Xiao Yu Wang, 2014. "Risk Sorting, Portfolio Choice, and Endogenous Informal Insurance," NBER Working Papers 20429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Xiaosheng Mu & Luciano Pomatto & Philipp Strack & Omer Tamuz, 2021. "Monotone Additive Statistics," Working Papers 2021-36, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    15. Aurélien Baillon & Ning Liu & Dennie Dolder, 2017. "Comparing uncertainty aversion towards different sources," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(1), pages 1-18, June.
    16. Tim Willems, 2013. "Political Accountability and Policy Experimentation: Why to Elect Left-Handed Politicians?," Economics Series Working Papers 647, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. Miyagishima, Kaname, 2019. "Fair criteria for social decisions under uncertainty," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 77-87.

    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. Madhav Chandrasekher & Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2022. "Dual‐Self Representations of Ambiguity Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1029-1061, May.
    2. Martins-da-Rocha, V. Filipe, 2010. "Interim efficiency with MEU-preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1987-2017, September.
    3. König-Kersting, Christian & Kops, Christopher & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2023. "A test of (weak) certainty independence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    4. Ghirardato, Paolo & Siniscalchi, Marciano, 2018. "Risk sharing in the small and in the large," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 730-765.
    5. Christoph Bühren & Fabian Meier & Marco Pleßner, 2023. "Ambiguity aversion: bibliometric analysis and literature review of the last 60 years," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 495-525, June.
    6. Rigotti, Luca & Shannon, Chris, 2012. "Sharing risk and ambiguity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 2028-2039.
    7. Karni, Edi & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2015. "Ambiguity and Nonexpected Utility," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    8. Strzalecki, Tomasz & Werner, Jan, 2011. "Efficient allocations under ambiguity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1173-1194, May.
    9. Matthias Lang, 2017. "First-Order and Second-Order Ambiguity Aversion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(4), pages 1254-1269, April.
    10. Chateauneuf, Alain & Faro, José Heleno & Tallon, Jean-Marc & Vergopoulos, Vassili, 2024. "Alpha-maxmin as an aggregation of two selves," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    11. repec:awi:wpaper:0448 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Eisei Ohtaki, 2023. "Optimality in an OLG model with nonsmooth preferences," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 19(3), pages 611-659, September.
    13. Jewitt, Ian & Mukerji, Sujoy, 2017. "Ordering ambiguous acts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 213-267.
    14. Alain Chateauneuf & Luciano De Castro, 2011. "Ambiguity Aversion and Absence of Trade," Discussion Papers 1535, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    15. Chambers, Robert G., 2014. "Uncertain equilibria and incomplete preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 48-54.
    16. Massimo Marinacci, 2015. "Model Uncertainty," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(6), pages 1022-1100, December.
    17. Galanis, Spyros, 2018. "Financial complexity and trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 219-230.
    18. Cerreia-Vioglio, S. & Maccheroni, F. & Marinacci, M. & Montrucchio, L., 2011. "Uncertainty averse preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1275-1330, July.
    19. Luciano Castro & Alain Chateauneuf, 2011. "Ambiguity aversion and trade," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(2), pages 243-273, October.
    20. Frick, Mira & Iijima, Ryota & Le Yaouanq, Yves, 2019. "Boolean Representations of Preferences under Ambiguity," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 173, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    21. Xiangyu Qu, 2015. "A belief-based definition of ambiguity aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(1), pages 15-30, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Certainty equivalent; Aggregation; Risk aversion; Sum of individual certainty equivalents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    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:eee:gamebe:v:76:y:2012:i:2:p:582-595. 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/inca/622836 .

    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.