Consistency, Heterogeneity, and Granularity of Individual Behavior under Uncertainty

Syngjoo Choi (), Raymond Fisman (), Douglas Gale () and Shachar Kariv ()
Additional contact information
Raymond Fisman: Graduate School of Business, Columbia University
Shachar Kariv: Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley

No 76, Economics Working Papers from Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science

Abstract: By using graphical representations of budget sets over bundles of state-contingent commodities, we generate a very rich data set well-suited to studying behavior under uncertainty at the level of the individual subject. We test the data for consistency with the maximization hypothesis, and we estimate preferences using a two-parameter utility function based on Faruk Gul (1991). This specification provides a good interpretation to the data at the level of the individual subject and can account for the highly heterogeneous behaviors observed in the laboratory. The parameter estimates jointly describe attitudes toward risk and allow us to characterize the distribution of risk preferences in the population.

Keywords: uncertainty; revealed preference; Expected Utility Theory; loss/disappointment aversion; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-upt
Date: 2007-01
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Working Paper: Consistency, Heterogeneity, and Granularity of Individual Behavior under Uncertainty (2007)
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