IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/umc/wpaper/0413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Increasing Outer Risk

Author

Abstract

Recent empirical research has established that the distributions of a wide range of economic variables are kurtotic in that they have higher peak(s) in the neighborhood of the mean and greater elongation in the tails than the normal distribution. This paper provides a formal characterization of the empirically significant notions of kurtotic distributions by formulating the concept of outer risk. An increase in outer risk corresponds to a dispersion transfer from the center of a distribution to its tails. In terms of the relocation of probability mass, such a dispersion transfer accentuates the peak(s) of the distribution and elongates its tails. It is shown that ordering distributions by outer risk is equivalent to the ordering of distributions resulting from unanimous choice by all individuals whose utility function has a negative fourth derivative.

Suggested Citation

  • X. Henry Wang & Carmen F. Menezes, 2004. "Increasing Outer Risk," Working Papers 0413, Department of Economics, University of Missouri, revised 23 Dec 2004.
    • Handle: RePEc:umc:wpaper:0413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15j9n1etHzf2zojk8LF9J9OwQIuDX2HOw/view?usp=sharing
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campbell, John Y. & Hentschel, Ludger, 1992. "No news is good news *1: An asymmetric model of changing volatility in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 281-318, June.
    2. Raj Aggarwal & Ramesh P. Rao & Takato Hiraki, 1989. "Skewness And Kurtosis In Japanese Equity Returns: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 12(3), pages 253-260, September.
    3. L. Wade, 1988. "Review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 99-100, July.
    4. Ekern, Steinar, 1980. "Increasing Nth degree risk," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 329-333.
    5. Pratt, John W & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1987. "Proper Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 143-154, January.
    6. Menezes, C & Geiss, C & Tressler, J, 1980. "Increasing Downside Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 921-932, December.
    7. Hwang, Soosung & Satchell, Stephen E, 1999. "Modelling Emerging Market Risk Premia Using Higher Moments," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(4), pages 271-296, October.
    8. Kimball, Miles S, 1993. "Standard Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 589-611, May.
    9. Charles J. Corrado & Tie Su, 1996. "Skewness And Kurtosis In S&P 500 Index Returns Implied By Option Prices," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 19(2), pages 175-192, June.
    10. Debreu, Gerard, 1970. "Economies with a Finite Set of Equilibria," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(3), pages 387-392, May.
    11. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 1999. "Explaining Investment Dynamics in U.S. Manufacturing: A Generalized (S,s) Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 783-826, July.
    12. Richard Harris & C. Coskun Kucukozmen, 2001. "The empirical distribution of stock returns: evidence from an emerging European market," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(6), pages 367-371.
    13. Charles J. Corrado & Tie Su, 1996. "Skewness And Kurtosis In S&P 500 Index Returns Implied By Option Prices," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 19(2), pages 175-192, June.
    14. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti & Rodney L. Wiggins II, 1997. "Efficient Inflation Estimation," NBER Working Papers 6183, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Badrinath, S G & Chatterjee, Sangit, 1988. "On Measuring Skewness and Elongation in Common Stock Return Distributions: The Case of the Market Index," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(4), pages 451-472, October.
    16. Eeckhoudt, Louis & Gollier, Christian & Schneider, Thierry, 1995. "Risk-aversion, prudence and temperance: A unified approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(3-4), pages 331-336, June.
    17. 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.
    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. Louis Eeckhoudt & Harris Schlesinger, 2006. "Putting Risk in Its Proper Place," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 280-289, March.
    2. 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.
    3. Michel Denuit & Louis Eeckhoudt & Béatrice Rey, 2010. "Some consequences of correlation aversion in decision science," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 259-269, April.
    4. Donatella Baiardi & Marco Magnani & Mario Menegatti, 2020. "The theory of precautionary saving: an overview of recent developments," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 513-542, June.
    5. Paan Jindapon & Liqun Liu & William S. Neilson, 2021. "Comparative risk apportionment," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 9(1), pages 91-112, April.
    6. Menegatti, Mario, 2014. "New results on the relationship among risk aversion, prudence and temperance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 232(3), pages 613-617.
    7. Gollier, Christian, 2019. "Variance stochastic orders," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1-8.
    8. Monica Billio & Bertrand Maillet & Loriana Pelizzon, 2022. "A meta-measure of performance related to both investors and investments characteristics," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 1405-1447, June.
    9. Bottasso, Anna & Duchêne, Sébastien & Guerci, Eric & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Noussair, Charles N., 2022. "Higher order risk attitudes of financial experts," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    10. James Huang & Richard Stapleton, 2017. "Higher-order risk vulnerability," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(2), pages 387-406, February.
    11. Eeckhoudt, Louis & Schlesinger, Harris & Tsetlin, Ilia, 2009. "Apportioning of risks via stochastic dominance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 994-1003, May.
    12. Sebastian Ebert & Diego C. Nocetti & Harris Schlesinger, 2018. "Greater Mutual Aggravation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2809-2811, June.
    13. Heinzel, Christoph, 2023. "Comparing utility derivative premia under additive and multiplicative risks," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 23-40.
    14. Crainich, David & Eeckhoudt, Louis & Le Courtois, Olivier, 2014. "Decreasing downside risk aversion and background risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 59-63.
    15. Patrick Roger, 2011. "Mixed risk aversion and preference for risk disaggregation: a story of moments," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(1), pages 27-44, January.
    16. Cary Deck & Harris Schlesinger, 2010. "Exploring Higher Order Risk Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1403-1420.
    17. Angrisani, Marco & Atella, Vincenzo & Brunetti, Marianna, 2018. "Public health insurance and household portfolio Choices: Unravelling financial “Side Effects” of Medicare," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 198-212.
    18. Gollier, Christian, 2002. "Time Horizon and the Discount Rate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 463-473, December.
    19. Letendre, Marc-Andre & Smith, Gregor W., 2001. "Precautionary saving and portfolio allocation: DP by GMM," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 197-215, August.
    20. Lisa L. Posey & Vickie Bajtelsmit, 2017. "Insurance and Endogenous Bankruptcy Risk: When is it Rational to Choose Gambling, Insurance, and Potential Bankruptcy?," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 42(1), pages 15-40, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Outer risk; outer risk aversion;

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    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:umc:wpaper:0413. 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: Chao Gu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edumous.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.