infonet-economy

How does risk tolerance vary with stake size? This important question cannot be adequately answered if framing effects, nonlinear probability weighting, and heterogeneity of preference types are neglected. We show that, contrary to gains, no coherent change in relative risk aversion is observed for losses. The increase in relative risk aversion over gains cannot be captured by the...

ENGLISH: Conventional wisdom views demographic change as a set of exogenous shocks impinging on social security, with the economy treated as a closed system. This contribution argues that demographics is nothing but the aggregate of individual decisions, which are influenced by social security. This claim is supported by both theoretical argument and empirical evidence with regard to...

Wenn ein Bankangestellter «seine» Bank um Milliarden betrügen kann, wenn Investment-Banker wie wild allzu riskante Geschäfte eingehen, wenn Fabriken plötzlich riesige Kostenblöcke darstellen, liegt für Aussenstehende immer die Frage nah, wie denn ein Unternehmen so ausser Kontrolle geraten kann. Die Autoren des folgenden Beitrags legen dar, wie die interne Steuerung und Kontrolle in...

In this article, I review two recent developments in the theory of computation of general equilibria. First, following Brown, DeMarzo and Eaves (1996) several papers have developed globally convergent algorithms for the computation of general equilibria in models with incomplete asset markets. I review some of the developments in that area. Second, new developments in computational...

Comments on the article by E. Brandstätter, G. Gigerenzer, and R. Hertwig. The authors discuss the priority heuristic, a recent model for decisions under risk. They reanalyze the experimental validity of this approach and discuss how these results compare with cumulative prospect theory, the currently most established model in behavioral economics. They also discuss how general...

Ratios of quadratic forms in correlated normal variables which introduce noncentrality into the quadratic forms are considered. The denominator is assumed to be positive (with probability 1). Various serial correlation estimates such as least-squares, Yule–Walker and Burg, as well as Durbin–Watson statistics, provide important examples of such ratios. The cumulative distribution...

Applied researchers often test for the difference of the Sharpe ratios of two investmentnstrategies. A very popular tool to this end is the test of Jobson and Korkie (1981), whichnhas been corrected by Memmel (2003). Unfortunately, this test is not valid when returnsnhave tails heavier than the normal distribution or are of time series nature. Instead, wenpropose the use of robust...

Empirical studies show that people tend to be overconfident about the precision of their knowledge, leading to miscalibration. Consistent with this, we found that on overage the decision makers of Swiss pension plans provide too narrow confidence intervals when asked to estimate the past return of various assets. Their confidence intervals are also systematically too narrow in their...