Risk aversion is traditionally defined in the context of lotteries over monetary payoffs. This paper extends the notion of risk aversion to a more general setup where outcomes (consequences) may not be measurable in monetary terms and people may have fuzzy preferences over lotteries, i.e. they may choose in a probabilistic manner. The paper considers comparative risk aversion within neoclassical expected utility theory, a constant error/tremble model and a strong utility model of probabilistic choice (which includes the Fechner model and the Luce choice model as special cases). The paper also provides a new definition of relative riskiness of lotteries.
The experimental literature and studies using survey data have established that people care a great deal about their relative economic position and not solely, as standard economic theory assumes, about their absolute economic position. Individuals are concerned about social comparisons. However, behavioral evidence in the field is rare. This paper provides an empirical analysis testing the model of inequity aversion using two unique panel data sets for basketball and soccer players. We find support that the concept of inequity aversion helps to understand how the relative income situation affects performance in a real competitive environment with real tasks and real incentives.
People care a great deal about their relative economic position and not solely about their absolute economic position. However, behavioral evidence is rare. This paper provides evidence on how the relative income position affectsnprofessional sports performances. Our analysis suggests that if a player’s salary is below the average and this difference increases, his performance worsens. Moreover, the larger the income differences, the stronger positional concern effects are observable. We also find that the more the players are integrated, the more evident a relative income effect is. Finally, we find that positional effects are stronger among high performing teams.
This paper deals with the compensation for non-fatal accident risk in Switzerland and presents empirical estimates of the value of a statistical injury. We approach the problem of endogenous sorting of workers into jobs with different accident risks based on unobserved productivity differences twofold. First, we have access to the number of accidents not only at the level of industries, but within cells defined over industry x skill-level of the job, which allows us to estimate risk compensation within groups of workers defined over the same cells. Second, we capitalize on the partial panel structure of our data which allows us to empirically isolate the wage component specific to the employer. Our different approaches to identification in fact yield very different estimates of the value of a statistical injury. Our preferred estimate gives an estimate of about 40,000 Swiss francs (per prevented injury pernyear).
This paper analyzes labor market success of workers who are displaced in boom versus recession periods. Moreover, the empirical analysis contrasts workers from small firms and large firms. The idea is that displacement carries no information about workers' productivity in large firms but is a signal of low productivity in small firms. This signal is stronger when the plant closure occurs in a boom period than in a recession period. Results indicate that the (i) state of the business cycle is important for influence the effect of displacement on labor market success and (ii) the effect differs by the size of the firm. In large firms, displaced workers suffer from larger earning losses when displacement occurs in recession compared to boom, thenopposite result is found for workers displaced from small firms.
We study alternative institutional arrangements for the determination of monetary policy in a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents,nwhere monetary policy has redistributive effects. Inflation is determined by a policy board using either simple-majority voting, supermajority voting, ornbargaining. We compare the equilibrium inflation rates to the first-best allocation.
This paper presents an axiomatic model of probabilistic choice under risk. In this model, when it comes to choosing one lottery over another, each alternative has a chance of being selected, unless one lottery stochastically dominates the other. An individual behaves as if he compares lotteries to a reference lottery—a least upper bound or a greatest lower boundnin terms of weak dominance. The proposed model is compatible with several well-known violations of expected utility theory such as the common ratio effect and the violations of the betweenness. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the proposed model are completeness, weak stochastic transitivity, continuity, common consequence independence,noutcome monotonicity, and odds ratio independence.
This paper establishes a surprising and robust empirical similarity between short-run heterogeneous consumption and long-term consumption growth risk models. The models not only deliver a similar fit on a given set of portfolios, their actual pricing errors are also highly correlated. In addition, we find that consumption dispersion is a robust predictor of the transitory component in aggregate consumption growth. To interpret these findings, we propose a model in which aggregate uncertainty is a function of idiosyncratic uncertainty and only long-term consumption growth risknis priced. An implication of this being that consumption dispersion is priced empirically not because markets are necessarily incomplete but because investors disagree in the short-run about theirncommon long-term consumption prospects.
This paper studies the responses of residential property and equity prices,ninflation and economic activity to monetary policy shocks in 17 countries, using data spanning 1986-2006. We estimate VARs for individual economies and panel VARs in which we distinguish between groups of countries on the basis of the characteristics of their financial systems. The results suggest that using monetary policy to offset asset price movements in order to guardnagainst financial instability may have large effects on economic activity. Furthermore, while financial structure influences the impact of policy on asset prices, its importance appears limited.
This paper examines the role of religious denomination for human capital formation. We employ a unique data set which covers, inter alia, information on numerous measures of school inputs in 169 Swiss districts for the years 1871/72, 1881/82nand 1894/95, marks from pedagogical examinations of conscripts (1875-1903), andnresults from political referenda to capture conservative or progressive values in addition to the cultural characteristics language and religion. Catholic districts show on average significantly lower educational performance than Protestant districts. However, accounting for other sociocultural characteristics qualifies the role of religion for educational production. The evidence suggests that Catholicism is harmful onlynin a conservative milieu. We also exploit information on absenteeism of pupils fromnschool to separate provision of schooling from use of schooling.
