Perceived risk and insurance decision taking for small losses

Abstract

Little systematic research has investigated differences in expressed attitude as a function of the manner in which probability information is communicated to a decision maker. The purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in expressed attitude when insurance coverage is introduced in a known-risk situation (the probability of loss is known), an uncertain situation (there is no prior information on the probability of loss) or an ambiguous (the information provided is vague). The experiments reported in this paper have been developed and tested in the classroom with undergraduate students. Unlike the vast majority of previous work dealing with lotteries and laboratory gambles, this study examine the behavior of people when facing a purchase decision on a well-known consumer good, i.e. a bottle of wine. The comparative results provide some evidence on the risk-taking behavior of consumers for small losses. Within an insurance context, people prefer the more familiar option of a known-risk situation and contrary to expectations, the results do not provide support to ambiguity aversion but to ambiguity seeking.     

Ambiguity and the value of information revisited

We analyze the value that decision makers place on the acquisition of information that partially or completely resolves uncertainty over the correct distribution of outcomes. We distinguish two sources of ambiguity of a given message service: posterior uncertainty over the correct probability distribution and uncertainty over the message which will be received. Given this distinction, we present a model where attitudes towards the two sources of ambiguity are separated and we study how these attitudes affect the value of information. The analysis clarifies and integrates seemingly contradictory results obtained previously in the literature.     

Time-consistent reinsurance and investment strategies for an AAI under smooth ambiguity utility

This paper investigates time-consistent reinsurance(excess-of-loss, proportional) and investment strategies for an ambiguity averse insurer(abbr. AAI). The AAI is ambiguous towards the insurance and financial markets. In the AAI's attitude, the intensity of the insurance claims' number and the market price of risk of a stock can not be estimated accurately. This formulation of ambiguity is similar to the uncertainty of different equivalent probability measures. The AAI can purchase excess-of-loss or proportional reinsurance to hedge the insurance risk and invest in a financial market with cash and an ambiguous stock. We investigate the optimization goal under smooth ambiguity given in Klibanoff, P., Marinacci, M., & Mukerji, S. [(2005). A smooth model of decision making under ambiguity. Econometrica 73, 1849–1892], which aims to search the optimal strategies under average case. The utility function does not satisfy the Bellman's principle and we employ the extended HJB equation proposed in Björk, T. & Murgoci, A. [(2014). A theory of Markovian time-inconsistent stochastic control in discrete time. Finance and Stochastics 18(3), 545–592] to solve this problem. In the end of this paper, we derive the equilibrium reinsurance and investment strategies under smooth ambiguity and present the sensitivity analysis to show the AAI's economic behaviors.     

A closed-form solution for options with ambiguity about stochastic volatility

We derive a closed-form solution for the price of a European call option in the presence of ambiguity about the stochastic process that determines the variance of the underlying asset’s return. The option pricing formula of Heston (Rev Financ Stud 6(2):327–343, 1993) is a particular case of ours, corresponding to the case in which there is no ambiguity (uncertainty is exclusively risk). In the presence of ambiguity, the variance uncertainty price becomes either a convex or a concave function of the instantaneous variance, depending on whether the variance ambiguity price is negative or positive. We find that if the variance ambiguity price is positive, the option price is decreasing in the level of ambiguity (across all moneyness levels). The opposite happens if the variance ambiguity price is negative. This option pricing model can be used to address various empirical research topics in the future.     

Competing institutional logics of information sharing in public services: Why we often seem to be talking at cross-purposes when we talk about information sharing

Sharing information and data across organizational boundaries has proved hard to achieve. This is, in part, because we have framed the problem, and possible solutions, in one of three conflicting ways that draw on powerful institutional logics: design, governance and enculturation. Five strategies for addressing this conflict are presented—contingency, combination, conflict, ambiguity and synthesis. The conclusion links the problem of information sharing to the paradoxical nature of information.     

Robust portfolio choice with stochastic interest rates

We determine the optimal investment strategy for an ambiguity-averse investor in a setting with stochastic interest rates. The investor has access to stocks, bonds, and a bank account and he is ambiguous about the expected rate of return of both bonds and stocks. The investor can have different levels of ambiguity aversion about the two types of risky assets. We find that it is more important to take model uncertainty about the stock dynamics than model uncertainty about the bond dynamics into account. Furthermore, the investor’s ambiguity increases his hedging demand. Consequently, the bond/stock ratio increases with his ambiguity and implies less extreme positions in the bank account. Altogether, our model yields portfolio allocations which are more in line with what is implementable in practice. Finally, we demonstrate that neglecting model uncertainty implies significant losses for the investor.     

Ambiguity, Information Quality, and Asset Pricing

When ambiguity‐averse investors process news of uncertain quality, they act as if they take a worst‐case assessment of quality. As a result, they react more strongly to bad news than to good news. They also dislike assets for which information quality is poor, especially when the underlying fundamentals are volatile. These effects induce ambiguity premia that depend on idiosyncratic risk in fundamentals as well as skewness in returns. Moreover, shocks to information quality can have persistent negative effects on prices even if fundamentals do not change.     

Robust multivariate portfolio choice with stochastic covariance in the presence of ambiguity

This paper provides the optimal multivariate intertemporal portfolio for an ambiguity averse investor, who has access to stocks and derivative markets, in closed form. The stock prices follow stochastic covariance processes and the investor can have different levels of uncertainty about the diffusion parts of the stocks and the covariance structure. We find strong evidence that the optimal exposures to stock and covariance risks are significantly affected by ambiguity aversion. Welfare analyses show that investors who ignore model uncertainty incur large losses, larger than those suffered under the embedded one-dimensional cases. We further confirm large welfare losses from not trading in derivatives as well as ignoring intertemporal hedging, we study the impact of ambiguity in that regard and justify the importance of including these factors in the scope of portfolio optimization. Conditions are provided for a well-behaved solution in general, together with verification theorems for the incomplete market case.     

The price of risk and ambiguity in an intertemporal general equilibrium model of asset prices

We consider a version of the intertemporal general equilibrium model of Cox et?al. (Econometrica 53:363–384, 1985) with a single production process and two correlated state variables. It is assumed that only one of them, Y ₂, has shocks correlated with those of the economy’s output rate and, simultaneously, that the representative agent is ambiguous about its stochastic process. This implies that changes in Y ₂ should be hedged and its uncertainty priced, with this price containing risk and ambiguity components. Ambiguity impacts asset pricing through two channels: the price of uncertainty associated with the ambiguous state variable, Y ₂, and the interest rate. With ambiguity, the equilibrium price of uncertainty associated with Y ₂ and the equilibrium interest rate can increase or decrease, depending on: (i) the correlations between the shocks in Y ₂ and those in the output rate and in the other state variable; (ii) the diffusion functions of the stochastic processes for Y ₂ and for the output rate; and (iii) the gradient of the value function with respect to Y ₂. As applications of our generic setting, we deduct the model of Longstaff and Schwartz (J Financ 47:1259–1282, 1992) for interest-rate-sensitive contingent claim pricing and the variance-risk price specification in the option pricing model of Heston (Rev Financ Stud 6:327–343, 1993). Additionally, it is obtained a variance-uncertainty price specification that can be used to obtain a closed-form solution for option pricing with ambiguity about stochastic variance.     

Credible discovery,settlement, and negative expected value suits

We introduce discovery into a model of settlement and negative expected value (NEV) suits under asymmetric information. The option to conduct discovery has several important effects. First, because discovery is cheaper than litigation, it reduces the defendant's incentive to settle under asymmetric information. Second, discovery must be credible. Because discovery is more valuable the greater the uncertainty it resolves, this introduces a credibility constraint on pre‐discovery settlement offers. This can further reduce the probability and size of a defendant's pre‐discovery settlement offer. Lastly, discovery reduces the ability of NEV plaintiffs to use asymmetric information to extract significant settlements from defendants.     

How Do Quasi‐Random Option Grants Affect CEO Risk‐Taking?

We examine how an increase in stock option grants affects CEO risk‐taking. The overall net effect of option grants is theoretically ambiguous for risk‐averse CEOs. To overcome the endogeneity of option grants, we exploit institutional features of multiyear compensation plans, which generate two distinct types of variation in the timing of when large increases in new at‐the‐money options are granted. We find that, given average grant levels during our sample period, a 10% increase in new options granted leads to a 2.8% to 4.2% increase in equity volatility. This increase in risk is driven largely by increased leverage.     

Market ambiguity and individual investor information demand

We examine whether ambiguity in the market leads to an increase in information demand by individual investors. Drawing on the asset-pricing model proposed by Mele and Sangiorgi (2015), which incorporates market ambiguity, we measure individual information demand using daily Google searches and measure market ambiguity using a metric based on the market trades of institutional investors. We find that individual investors increase their information demand during periods of greater market ambiguity. We also provide evidence that information demand from individual investors spikes around earnings announcement days primarily when market uncertainty is driven by net-selling activity. Overall, these results suggest that the disagreement among institutional investors either represents uncertainty or contributes to the uncertainty related to a stock, leading to increased demand for information from individual investors.     

Portfolio selections under mean-variance preference with multiple priors for means and variances

We study portfolio selections under mean-variance preference with multiple priors for means and variances. We introduce two types of multiple priors, the priors for means and the priors for variances of risky asset returns. As our framework, in the absence of a risk-free asset, the global minimum-variance portfolio is optimal when the investor is extremely ambiguity averse with respect to means, and the equally weighted portfolio is optimal when the investor is extremely ambiguity averse with respect to variances.     

Financial Markets' Views about the Euro–Swiss Franc Floor

Exchange rates and option prices incorporate market participants' views about the credibility and the effects of exchange rate targets. I present a model to determine exchange rates under policy targets that can be used to price options. The model is estimated with Euro–Swiss Franc exchange rate and options price data. In the first few months of the minimum exchange rate policy, the implied survival probability of the policy for a 3‐month horizon was typically less than 75%. Over time, the credibility increased and this probability reached 95% in August 2014.     

The association of formal and informal public accounting mentoring with role stress and related job outcomes

This paper examines the association between mentoring (both formal and informal) and three measures of role stress (role conflict, role ambiguity, and perceived environmental uncertainty), as well as two job outcomes (job performance and turnover intentions). The statistical analysis is based on structural equation modeling, using responses from 794 employees of large public accounting organizations. The results suggest that in addition to providing the traditional career development and psychosocial support functions, informal mentors provide protégés with information that clarifies their organizational role (reduces role ambiguity). However, mentoring benefits may come at a cost: higher role conflict. The study found limited positive effects attributed to formally assigned mentors.     

Mortgage prepayment with an uncertain holding period

A discrete-time-option pricing model is developed to value a mortgage and its embedded prepayment option when the effective life of the mortgage is a random variable with a probability distribution of known parameters. The model can be applied when the borrower's ex ante expectation of his tenure follows any probability distribution bounded to the left at zero. The Gamma distribution is used to illustrate the model.The pricing model is further applied to determine the conditions under which financially motivated prepayment is optimal. The results show that the certainty model understates the Interest Rate Differential needed to justify prepayment (IRD) for short Expected Holding Period (EHP) borrowers and overstates the IRD for long EHP borrowers. When the EHP is relatively long, the certainty model provides relatively good estimates of IRD during the beginning years of the mortgage life. Under most other conditions, the estimates of the certainty holding period model are biased.     

农户风险偏好对林业投入决策的影响研究——以广东省集体林区为例

以广东省集体林区农户为研究对象,以前景理论为基础,采用经济学实验测度农户风险偏好,并用Heckman模型对样本农户风险偏好对其经营意愿与投入强度等决策的影响关系进行分析。结果表明：样本农户大多呈现风险厌恶的特征;农户的风险厌恶程度、损失厌恶程度以及对事件判断的主观概率均会对其投入决策产生不同程度的影响;其经营决策并非遵循理性经济人的收益最大化,而是遵循“安全第一”的法则,面对风险等级较高的林业项目投入意愿较弱,投入强度较低。     

Whose opinion matters when insiders disagree with short sellers?

This study investigates the credibility of conflicting trading signals from two well-informed and sophisticated parties: corporate insiders and short sellers. Our results suggest that insiders’ information is dominant when short sellers trade in the opposite direction. We attribute the positive price reaction following a disagreement to insiders’ superior information that is not available to short sellers. Our results do not support the managerial short-termism argument. Two additional tests show that insider buying credibility enhances when information asymmetry is high and that short sellers reverse their shorting position after the disclosure of insider buying. Both findings support the idea that short sellers may experience a previously unacknowledged barrier in accessing private information.     

Tax Rate Uncertainty, Investment Decisions, and Tax Neutrality

This article deals with the effects of tax rate uncertainty (TRU) on individual investment behavior. We show that under risk neutrality as well as under risk aversion, increased TRU has an ambiguous impact on investment, depending on the investment project's structure of cash flows and depreciation deductions. Although the investment effects are small the popular view that tax policy uncertainty depresses real investment is rejected. Further, tax neutrality in the light of tax policy uncertainty is defined more precisely. Neutrality results for the Johansson-Samuelson tax and the cash flow tax that are known from certainty are confirmed under TRU.     

The Effects of Ambiguous Information on Initial and Subsequent IPO Returns

Newly public companies must disclose significant risk factors in the offering prospectus. These disclosures are examples of “soft” or ambiguous information. Ambiguity models predict that investors will alter their portfolio weights and react to subsequent signals about such information. We test for these effects in a sample of 1,398 initial public offerings (IPOs) using word count ratios between soft and hard information as measures of ambiguity. We find a significant relationship between the soft information on risk and both initial and ex post measures of returns. These results support the view that soft information embeds ambiguity and that it influences investors’ portfolio choices.