IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/41191.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Preferences and Increased Risk Aversion under a General Framework of Stochastic Dominance

Author

Listed:
  • Donald C., Rudow

Abstract

This paper analyzes increased risk aversion in the presence of two risks. Necessary and sufficient conditions for increased risk aversion across the domain of the foreground risk are found for changes in both the foreground and background risks. Preferences that satisfy the necessary and sufficient conditions are determined through a lower bound on their measure of prudence. These bounds are found through second-degree spreads of a transformation of the background risk. The necessary and sufficient conditions demonstrate that for all second degree spreads of this nature, absolute temperance plays a central role in the necessary and sufficient conditions for increased risk aversion. The approach also demonstrates that changes in risk aversion under the general framework of stochastic dominating spreads can be explained by a weighted average of terms involving absolute prudence and absolute temperance. Once a general set of necessary and sufficient conditions have been found it is shown that for preferences that are decreasing absolute risk averse in the sense of Ross, increased risk aversion due to changes in the background risk within this framework is equivalent to Ross risk vulnerability. The general conditions also find necessary and sufficient conditions for preferences to be properly risk averse toward patent increases in risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald C., Rudow, 2005. "Preferences and Increased Risk Aversion under a General Framework of Stochastic Dominance," MPRA Paper 41191, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 Jun 2005.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:41191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/41191/2/MPRA_paper_41191.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/41191/1/Preferences_and_Increased_Risk_3_.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    2. Ross, Stephen A, 1981. "Some Stronger Measures of Risk Aversion in the Small and the Large with Applications," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(3), pages 621-638, May.
    3. Meyer, Jack & Ormiston, Michael B, 1989. "Deterministic Transformations of Random Variables and the Comparative Statics of Risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 179-188, June.
    4. Eeckhoudt, Louis & Gollier, Christian & Schlesinger, Harris, 1996. "Changes in Background Risk and Risk-Taking Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(3), pages 683-689, May.
    5. Meyer, Jack, 1977. "Second Degree Stochastic Dominance with Respect to a Function," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 477-487, June.
    6. 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.
    7. Alfred Müller & Marco Scarsini, 2001. "Stochastic Comparison of Random Vectors with a Common Copula," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 723-740, November.
    8. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    9. Pratt, John W, 1988. "Aversion to One Risk in the Presence of Others," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 395-413, December.
    10. Donald C. Keenan & Arthur Snow, 2003. "Locally Greater Vulnerability to Background Risk," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 28(2), pages 161-172, December.
    11. Pratt, John W, 1990. "The Logic of Partial-Risk Aversion: Paradox Lost," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 105-113, June.
    12. Hadar, Josef & Russell, William R, 1969. "Rules for Ordering Uncertain Prospects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 25-34, March.
    13. Gollier, Christian & Pratt, John W, 1996. "Risk Vulnerability and the Tempering Effect of Background Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1109-1123, September.
    14. Machina, Mark J & Pratt, John W, 1997. "Increasing Risk: Some Direct Constructions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 103-127, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Keenan, Donald C. & Snow, Arthur, 2012. "Ross risk vulnerability for introductions and changes in background risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 197-206.
    2. Gregory M. Gelles & Douglas W. Mitchell, 1999. "Broadly Decreasing Risk Aversion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(10), pages 1432-1439, October.
    3. Henry Chiu, W., 2020. "Financial risk taking in the presence of correlated non-financial background risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 167-179.
    4. Robert F. Nau, 2003. "A Generalization of Pratt-Arrow Measure to Nonexpected-Utility Preferences and Inseparable Probability and Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(8), pages 1089-1104, August.
    5. Wang, Jianli & Li, Jingyuan, 2014. "Decreasing Ross risk aversion: Higher-order generalizations and implications," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 136-142.
    6. Christian Gollier & James Hammitt & Nicolas Treich, 2013. "Risk and choice: A research saga," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 129-145, October.
    7. G. Dionne & F. Gagnon & K. Dachraoui, 1997. "Increases in risk and optimal portfolio," THEMA Working Papers 97-29, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    8. Trabelsi, Mohamed Ali, 2006. "Les nouveaux modèles de décision dans le risque et l’incertain : quel apport ? [The new models of decision under risk or uncertainty : What approach?]," MPRA Paper 25442, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Octave Jokung, 2013. "Changes in multiplicative background risk and risk-taking behavior," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 127-149, January.
    10. Liu, Liqun & Meyer, Jack, 2013. "Substituting one risk increase for another: A method for measuring risk aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(6), pages 2706-2718.
    11. Heinzel, Christoph, 2023. "Comparing utility derivative premia under additive and multiplicative risks," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 23-40.
    12. Dionne, Georges & Li, Jingyuan, 2014. "Comparative Ross risk aversion in the presence of mean dependent risks," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 128-135.
    13. Li, Jingyuan & Liu, Dongri & Wang, Jianli, 2016. "Risk aversion with two risks: A theoretical extension," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 100-105.
    14. Günter Franke & Harris Schlesinger & Richard C. Stapleton, 2006. "Multiplicative Background Risk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(1), pages 146-153, January.
    15. Dionne, Georges & Li, Jingyuan, 2012. "Comparative Ross risk aversion in the presence of quadrant dependent risks," Working Papers 12-7, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    16. Kimball, Miles S, 1993. "Standard Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 589-611, May.
    17. Marzia De Donno & Mario Menegatti, 2020. "Some conditions for the equivalence between risk aversion, prudence and temperance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 39-60, July.
    18. Gollier, Christian & Schlesinger, Harris, 1996. "Portfolio choice under noisy asset returns," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 47-51, October.
    19. Trabelsi, Mohamed Ali, 2006. "Les nouveaux modèles de décision dans le risque et l’incertain : quel apport ? [The new models of decision under risk or uncertainty : What approach?]," MPRA Paper 25442, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Christoph Heinzel, 2016. "Precautionary Saving in the Large under Higher-Order Risk and Recursive Utility," FOODSECURE Working papers 43, LEI Wageningen UR.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stochastic dominance; increased risk aversion; background risk; transformations; patent increase in risk; prudence; proper risk aversion; risk vulnerability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:41191. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.