IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/exc/wpaper/2007-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is There A Plausible Theory for Risky Decisions?

Author

Listed:
  • James C. Cox
  • Vjollca Sadiraj
  • Bodo Vogt
  • Utteeyo Dasgupta

Abstract

A large literature is concerned with analysis and empirical application of theories of decision making for environments with risky outcomes. Expected value theory has been known for centuries to be subject to critique by St. Petersburg paradox arguments. More recently, theories of risk aversion have been critiqued with calibration arguments applied to concave payoff transformations. This paper extends the calibration critique to decision theories that represent risk aversion solely with transformation of probabilities. Testable calibration propositions are derived that apply to four representative decision theories: expected utility theory, cumulative prospect theory, rank-dependent expected utility theory, and dual expected utility theory. Heretofore, calibration critiques of theories of risk aversion have been based solely on thought experiments. This paper reports real experiments that provide data on the relevance of the calibration critiques to evaluating the plausibility of theories of risk aversion. The paper also discusses implications of the data for (original) prospect theory with editing of reference payoffs and for the new dual-self model of impulse control. In addition, the paper reports an experiment with a truncated St. Petersburg bet that adds to data inconsistent with risk neutrality.

Suggested Citation

  • James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj & Bodo Vogt & Utteeyo Dasgupta, 2007. "Is There A Plausible Theory for Risky Decisions?," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2007-05, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, revised Jun 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:exc:wpaper:2007-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://excen.gsu.edu/workingpapers/GSU_EXCEN_WP_2007-05.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://excen.gsu.edu/workingpapers/GSU_EXCEN_WP_2008-04.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2008
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://excen.gsu.edu/workingpapers/GSU_EXCEN_WP_2010-06.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://excen.gsu.edu/workingpapers/GSU_EXCEN_WP_2012-09.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Eike B. Kroll & Bodo Vogt, 2009. "The St. Petersburg Paradox despite risk-seeking preferences: An experimental study," FEMM Working Papers 09004, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    2. Minqiang Li, 2014. "On Aumann and Serrano’s economic index of risk," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(2), pages 415-437, February.
    3. Riedl, A.M., 2012. "Experimental economics : economic and game theoretic principles in experimental research in the social sciences," Research Memorandum 001, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    4. Tibor Neugebauer, 2010. "Moral Impossibility in the Petersburg Paradox : A Literature Survey and Experimental Evidence," LSF Research Working Paper Series 10-14, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    5. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2011. "Risk Aversion as Attitude towards Probabilities: A Paradox," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2011-10, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.

    More about this item

    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:exc:wpaper:2007-05. 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: J. Todd Swarthout (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/exgsuus.html .

    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.