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We study risk effects, including higher-order risk effects, on optimal decision making in the linear-payoff model. This model includes the standard portfolio problem, the coinsurance problem, the problem of output choice with a risky price or a risky cost, and the problem of hedging a risky return as special cases. We distinguish between risk taking and risk mitigation and between uncertainty over a benefit and uncertainty over a cost. We identify restrictions on preferences for clear-cut comparative static effects of Nth-degree risk increases. For an uncertain benefit, the decision maker compensates increased risk by lowering exposure to risk; for an uncertain cost, the behavioral response depends on the parity of the order of the risk change. This is because only even-order risk changes increase the riskiness of terminal wealth while odd-order risk changes reduce it. To resolve this discrepancy, we introduce a new class of stochastic dominance relations that is suitable for uncertainty over a cost.

International audience; While it reduces the probability of facing a primary (or vaccine-preventable) disease, vaccination may also introduce the risk of facing vaccine induced side effects. In this paper, we address the link between this feature of vaccination and attitudes toward risk. Risk aversion is shown to increase the propensity to vaccinate when the primary disease is lethal or when the risks of primary disease and of side effects are faced in different periods. When the primary disease is non-lethal and may occur together with side effects, we show how the effect of risk aversion is affected by the probability and severity of each disease. The implications of the introduction of random effects of primary disease and of random side effects are also analyzed.

The paper studies the interaction between saving and tertiary health prevention in a two-period framework where future decline in health is certain. The cost of investment in prevention occurs in the health attribute and future benefits include an increase in the probability of receiving treatment and a partial recovery of health if treated. In this framework, we show that the effects of changes in the returns on saving and on tertiary prevention depend on agent's correlation attitude (either correlation aversion or correlation loving). Furthermore, we study how prudence/imprudence in health and cross-prudence/imprudence in wealth determine the impact of a background health risk on optimal choices. Finally, we analyze the effect of high-order preferences in case of high-degree risk changes.

This paper empirically estimates a micro-founded model which studies the macroeconomic impact of environmental and financial risks on consumption choices in the Mediterranean Region. The analysis is carried out using time series aggregate data for fourteen Mediterranean countries over the period 1965-2008. Our results indicate that both risks and their interaction significantly influence consumption dynamics. Our estimates of the indexes of relative risk aversion and relative prudence, as well as the relative preference for the quality of environment suggest marked cross-country heterogeneity.

This paper studies the empirical relationship between consumption and saving under two different sources of uncertainty: financial risk and environmental risk. The analysis is carried out using time series data for six advanced economies in the period 1965-2007. The results support the theoretical conclusions that both financial risk alone and the interaction between financial and environmental risks affect consumption. Moreover, we suggest a solution to some shortcomings which concern the empirical analysis performed with one-argument utility functions. Finally, we provide new estimates of indexes of relative risk aversion and relative prudence, and relative preference of environmental quality.