An Empirical Investigation Into the Nature of Risk Preferences

该项目研究家庭风险偏好的本质。它利用了一个新的数据集，记录了家庭样本在汽车、家庭和雨伞保险方面的选择。这些数据还包括供住户选择的菜单、住户的索赔历史，以及每户丰富的人口统计信息。该项目分为两部分。第一部分在假设家庭对风险的主观信念是正确的前提下，考察风险偏好的本质。它首先考察了“标准”风险厌恶（最终财富状态的凹效用）、损失厌恶和非线性概率加权对家庭在汽车和家庭保险中免赔额选择的单独影响。第一部分还将研究家庭风险选择的其他决定因素，包括歧义规避，以及其他政策选择，如责任保险下的限制选择，其中涉及大笔赌注。该项目的第二部分将检验家庭对风险的主观信念。一个家庭的风险选择是由他们对风险的偏好和对风险的主观信念共同决定的。该项目将寻求评估风险偏好和主观信念的联合分布。虽然一般不可能进行点识别，但数据的丰富性将允许进行部分识别。更广泛的影响：该项目有可能促进对不确定性下家庭决策的理解，并帮助科学界进一步发展不确定性下的选择理论。数据集的获取提供了一个机会，可以获得关于家庭风险偏好的性质和他们对风险的信念结构的新的重要见解。

The project studies the nature of households' risk preferences. It utilizes a new data set that documents the choices made by a sample of households with respect to auto, home, and umbrella insurance. The data also include the menus from which the households' make their choices, the households' claim histories, and a rich set of demographic information for each household.The project has two parts. The first part investigates the nature of risk preferences under the assumption that households' subjective beliefs about risk are correct. It initially examines the separate influences of "standard" risk aversion (concave utility over final wealth states), loss aversion, and nonlinear probability weighting on households' deductible choices in auto and home insurance. The first part also will investigate other determinants of households' risky choices, including ambiguity aversion, as well as other policy choices, such as limit choices under liability coverages, which involve large stakes.The second part of the project will examine households' subjective beliefs about risk. A household's risky choices are jointly determined by their preferences for risk and their subjective beliefs about risk. The project will seek to estimate the joint distribution of risk preferences and subjective beliefs. Although point identification generally will not be possible, the richness of the data will allow for partial identification.Broader Impact: The project has the potential to advance the understanding of household decision making under uncertainty and to help the scientific community further the development of the theory of choice under uncertainty. The acquisition of the data set presents the opportunity to gain new and important insights into the nature of households' risk preferences and the structure of their beliefs about risk.