An Empirical Investigation Into the Nature of Risk Preferences

该项目研究家庭风险偏好的性质。 它利用了一个新的数据集，记录了样本家庭在汽车，家庭和雨伞保险方面所做的选择。 这些数据还包括家庭做出选择的菜单、家庭的索赔历史以及每个家庭的丰富人口统计信息。 第一部分在假设家庭对风险的主观信念是正确的情况下研究风险偏好的性质。它首先考察了“标准”风险厌恶（凹效用最终财富状态），损失厌恶和非线性概率加权家庭的汽车和家庭保险的免赔额选择的单独影响。 第一部分还将调查家庭风险选择的其他决定因素，包括模糊厌恶，以及其他政策选择，如责任保险下的限额选择，这涉及到大的风险。第二部分的项目将调查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他们对风险的主观信念共同决定的。 该项目将寻求估计风险偏好和主观信念的联合分布。 虽然点识别一般是不可能的，但丰富的数据将允许部分识别。更广泛的影响：该项目有可能促进对不确定情况下家庭决策的理解，并帮助科学界进一步发展不确定情况下的选择理论。数据集的获取提供了一个机会，可以对家庭风险偏好的性质及其风险信念的结构获得新的重要见解。

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.