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We document a robust dynamic inconsistency in risky choice. Using a unique brokerage dataset and two preregistered experiments, we compare people's initial risk-taking plans to their subsequent decisions. In both settings, people accept risk as part of a "loss-exit" strategy-planning to continue taking risk after gains and stopping after losses. Actual behavior follows the reverse pattern, deviating from initial strategies by cutting gains early and chasing losses. More individuals accept risk when offered a commitment to their initial strategy. Our results help reconcile seemingly contradictory findings on risk-taking in static versus dynamic contexts. We discuss implications for theory and welfare.

This paper investigates the dynamics of group decisions regarding risky tax avoidance strategies using a laboratory experiment. To identify the causes of risk taking by groups, we compare individual to group decisions in three scenarios. The first scenario allocates payoffs from group decisions equally to all members of a group. The second and third scenario introduce intra-group payoff conflict as a new influential factor in group dynamics. Hereby, we separate intra-group payoff conflicts in the distribution of costs and profits. This manipulation allows us to disentangle group discussion effects resulting from the competing theories of polarization and diversification of opinions. Our overall findings support a predominant diversification of opinions effect. When group members share all payoffs equally, this effect overcomes polarization in 100% of the cases where outstanding individuals are risk averse, while group polarization appears to be more likely towards outstanding risk loving subjects. Intra-group payoff conflict shifts these likelihoods, supporting the importance of rational arguments in group polarization. Consequently, our experimental results support a strong increase in the level of average tax avoidance following group decisions in case of all or negative outcomes being shared equally by group members. Intra-group payoff in the distribution of costs, however, removes this difference and shifts, both individual and group preferences, towards safety.

In der gesetzlichen und der betrieblichen Altersversorgung existieren unterschiedlichen Finanzierungssysteme: Die Leistungen der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung werden im Umlageverfahren primär von den heute in das System einzahlenden Erwerbstätigen finanziert. Dieses Umlageverfahren im größten deutschen Versichertenkollektiv ist vom Verfahren her kostengünstig. Anfällig ist das System für demografische und arbeitsmarktbezogene Krisen. Die finanziellen Ressourcen der betrieblichen Altersversorgung dagegen werden - zunehmend - nach dem Kapitaldeckungsverfahren erst angelegt und zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt ausgezahlt. Wenn im Folgenden von der betrieblichen Altersversorgung (bAV) die Rede ist, dann immer in Bezug auf kapitalgedeckte Systeme. Bei kapitalgedeckten Systemen sind die finanziellen Ressourcen dann gefährdet, wenn - wie in der gegenwärtigen anhaltenden Niedrigzinsphase - der Kapitalmarkt nur niedrige Erträge auf das angelegte Kapital abwirft und die Ausgaben für die garantierten Leistungen bspw. durch die steigende Lebenserwartung schneller steigen als das Kapitalvolumen. Die je spezifischen systemischen Chancen und Risiken beider Systeme sind seit langem Gegenstand kontroverser renten- und finanzpolitischer Diskussionen. [...]

"Will it help me sell more shoes?" - This response by the owner of a shoe factory when asked by a leader in Information Technology about acquiring a new IT device touches upon one of the most important points about IT and companies: should an organization invest in IT? If your answer is "yes", then under what conditions? So what is right for my company? When should I invest in IT and how much is it worth my while? Under what conditions can my company expect an investment of capital in technological assets to be justified? What factors will put my investment at risk and which factors will reduce my benefits? These are questions companies should ask. In this research, we explore which factors are important. Also, we integrate them into the MERIT, a model that can be used as a tool for the evaluation of the conditions of a company to take advantage of an investment related to Information Technology.

We develop the idea of using mean-variance preferences for the analysis of the first-price, all-pay auction. On the bidding side, we characterise the optimal strategy in symmetric all-pay auctions under mean-variance preferences for general distributions of valuations and any number of bidders. We find that, in contrast to winner-pay auction formats, only hightype bidders increase their bids relative to the risk-neutral case while low types minimise variance exposure by bidding low. Introducing asymmetric variance aversions across bidders into a Uniform valuations, two-player framework, we show that a more variance-averse type bids always higher than her less variance-averse counterpart. Taking mean-variance bidding behaviour as given, we show that an expected revenue maximising seller may want to optimally limit the number of participants. Although expected revenue for risk-neutral bidders typically dominates revenue under mean-variance bidding, if the seller himself takes account of the variance of revenue, he may find it preferable to attract bidders endowed with mean-variance preferences.

We investigate whether the set of Kreps and Porteus (1978) preferences include classes of preferences that are stationary, monotonic and well-ordered in terms of risk aversion. We prove that the class of preferences introduced by Hansen and Sargent(1995) in their robustness analysis is the only one that fulfills these properties. The paper therefore suggests a shift from the traditional approach to studying the role ofrisk aversion in recursive problems. We also provide applications, in which we discuss the impact of risk aversion on asset pricing and risk sharing., Economics Working Paper Series, 13/172

The VIX, the stock market option-based implied volatility, strongly co-moves with measures of the monetary policy stance. When decomposing the VIX into two components, a proxy for risk aversion and expected stock market volatility (“uncertainty”), we find that a lax monetary policy decreases both risk aversion and uncertainty, with the former effect being stronger. The result holds in a structural vector autoregressive framework, controlling for business cycle movements and using a variety of identification schemes for the vector autoregression in general and monetary policy shocks in particular. The effect of monetary policy on risk aversion is also apparent in regressions using high frequency data.

This paper explores the effect of personality traits on: (1) the willingness to make risk-taking decisions on behalf of a group, (2) the nature of "choice shifts", i.e. the difference between the amount of risk taken in the group context and individually. Openness and agreeableness emerge as significant determinants of the willingness to lead: non-leader women and non-leader men score lower on openness and higher in agreeableness compared to both leader men and leader women. Neuroticism explains the within-gender variance in individual risk-taking among women, who are on average more risk-averse than men. Subjects in general behave more cautiously when they are making risky decisions on behalf of a group. Among men, a higher agreeableness score implies higher caution in group decisions, while conscientiousness leads to less caution. In contrast, among women, a higher conscientiousness score implies higher caution in the group context, suggesting that the two genders might interpret the social norms in group decision-making differently.

This paper explores the relationship between dynamic consistency and the existing notions of unambiguous events for Choquet expected utility preferences. A decision maker is faced with an information structure represented by a filtration. We show that the decision maker's preferences respect dynamic consistency on a fixed filtration if and only if the last stage of the filtration is composed of unambiguous events in the sense of Nehring (1999). Adopting two axioms, conditional certainty equivalence consistency and constrained dynamic consistency to filtration measurable acts, it is shown that the decision maker respects these two axioms on a fixed filtration if and only if the last stage of the filtration is made up of unambiguous events the sense of Zhang (2002).

We use a simple version of the Psychological Expected Utility Model (Caplin and Leahy, Q J Econ 116:55–80, 2001) to analyze the optimal choice of information accuracy by an individual who is concerned with anticipatory feeling. The individual faces the following trade-off: on the one hand information may lead to emotional costs, on the other the higher the information accuracy, the higher the efficiency of decision-making. We completely and explicitly characterize how anticipatory utility depends on information accuracy, and study the optimal amount of information acquisition. We obtain simple and explicit conditions under which the individual prefers no-information or partial information gathering. We show that anomalous attitudes towards information can be more frequent and articulated than previously thought.

This paper compares two contrasting approaches to robust monetary policy design. The first developed by Hansen and Sargent (2003, 2007) assumes unstructured model uncertainty and uses a minimax robustness criterion to design monetary rules. This contrasts with an older literature that structures uncertainty by seeking rules that are robust across competing views of the economy. This paper carries out and compares robust design exercises using both approaches using a standard ‘canonical New Keynesian model’. We pay particular attention to a number of issues: First, we distinguish three possible forms of the implied game between malign nature and the policymaker in the Hansen-Sargent procedure. Second, in both approaches, we examine the consequences for robust rules of the zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on the nominal interest rate, the monetary instrument. Finally, again for both types of robustness exercise we explore the implications of policy design when the policymaker is obliged to use simple Taylor-type interest rate rules.

Suppose a fund manager uses predictors in changing port-folio allocations over time. How does predictability translate into portfolio decisions? To answer this question we derive a new model within the Bayesian framework, where managers are assumed to modulate the systematic risk in part by observing how the benchmark returns are related to some set of imperfect predictors, and in part on the basis of their own information set. In this portfolio allocation process, managers concern themselves with the potential benefits arising from the market timing generated by benchmark predictors and by private information. In doing this, we impose a structure on fund returns, betas, and bench-mark returns that help to analyse how managers really use predictors in changing investments over time. The main findings of our empirical work are that beta dynamics are significantly affected by economic variables, even though managers do not care about bench-mark sensitivities towards the predictors in choosing their instrument exposure, and that persistence and leverage effects play a key role as well. Conditional market timing is virtually absent, if not negative, over the period 1990-2005. However such anomalous negative timing ability is offset by the leverage effect, which in turn leads to an increase in mutual fund extra performance.

Offshoring is a widely used practice in the software development. It is mainly employed to reduce de­ve­­lop­ment costs. However, as in a number of studies has been shown, about 40 % of offshore software development projects are flops. One predominant reason for it is the lack of standardized and practicable methods of risk management due to the inherent complexity of software development offshoring. Thus, suitable methods and tools for the risk management specific to such projects are required.

We conduct a prisoner’s dilemma experiment with a punishment/reward stage, where punishments and rewards are risky. This is compared with a risk free treatment. We find that subjects do not change their behavior in the face of risky outcomes. Additionally, we measure risk attitude and the emotions of subjects. While we find a strong influence of emotions, individual risk aversion has no effect on the decision to punish or reward. This is good news for lab experiments who abstract from risky outcomes. From the perspective of social preferences, our results provide evidence for risk neutral inclusion of other player’s payoffs in the decisionmaker’s utility function.

Die Kompliziertheit und Änderungsdynamik des Unternehmenssteuersystems bleibt nicht ohne Einfluss auf Steuerexperten und Entscheidungsträger in den Unternehmen. Die häufigen Steueränderungen in den letzten Jahren, verursacht durch Gesetzgebung, Finanzverwaltung und Rechtsprechung, haben die Mannigfaltigkeit, Vielschichtigkeit und Komplexität steuerökonomischer Prozesse und Entscheidungen beträchtlich erhöht. Das führte nicht nur zu einem Verlust an Praktikabilität im Steuerrecht sondern auch zu gestiegenen Planungs-, Planungsänderungs-, Rechtsberatungs-, Organisations- und Steuerfolgekosten.In Konsequenz dieser Entwicklungen stehen Steuerexperten und Unternehmen vor dem Problem, dass die steuerlichen Auswirkungen von Planungssachverhalten nicht mehr vollständig prognostizierbar sind. Fehlt der steuerlichen Planung die nötige Prognosegenauigkeit, besteht die Gefahr, dass die auf dieser Planung basierende Entscheidung fehlerhaft getroffen wird; es kommt zu steuerlichen Risiken.Das Buch liefert einen Beitrag zur Erfassung, Bewertung, Überwachung und Steuerung steuerlicher Risiken. Es geht insbesondere der Frage nach, ob steuerliche Risiken allein eine Erscheinung der allgemeinen Ungewissheit im Steuerrecht sind, oder ob sie ebenfalls als Folge schlecht-strukturierter Entscheidungsprobleme gedeutet werden können. Dazu wird der Zusammenhang zwischen steuerlichen Aufgabenstellungen, Entscheidungshandlungen und spezifischen steuerlichen Risiken hergestellt.Die steuerlichen Risiken werden differenziert dargestellt. Bezogen auf die allgemeine Feststellung, dass steuerliche Risiken die Folge unvollkommener Informationen sind, werden zwei Ursachenklassen, die steuerrechtsbezogenen und die entscheidungsbezogenen Ursachen untersucht. Darauf basierend bespricht der Autor ausführlich steuerrechtsbezogene Risiken, Rechtsanwendungsrisiken sowie das Risiko illegaler Ausweichhandlungen.Ebenso wird eine Strategie für die Bewältigung der Risikoproblematik aufgezeigt. Über die Auswertung entscheidungs- und realtheoretischer Erkenntnisse werden der Aufbau und die Anforderungen eines steuerlich orientierten Risiko-Managementsystems beschrieben. Ausgehend vom Nachweis, dass steuerliche Risiken schlecht-strukturierte Entscheidungsprobleme sind, geht der Autor sehr dezidiert auf Lösungsansätze aus dem Bereich der deskriptiven Entscheidungstheorie ein.Mit diesen Erkenntnissen können zum einen wichtige Aussagen über die Ausgestaltung steuerökonomischer Entscheidungsprozesse gewonnen werden. Zum anderen stellt das Buch einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Fortentwicklung des Steuer-Managements als Träger des steuerlichen Risiko-Managementsystems dar.

We investigate the determinants of bilateral international equity and bond portfolio reallocation across a large cross section of countries over the 1997 to 2001 period. We first argue that financial integration is not a global phenomenon, as equity and bond home biases declined significantly only among European countries, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Then, we show that the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) eased the access to the equity market and, to a larger extent, the bond market; thereby, enhancing regional financial integration in the euro area. Beside the effect of the EMU, the strongest determinants of the changes in portfolio weights are expected diversification benefits and the initial degree of underweight.

This paper argues that forecast estimators should minimise the loss function in a statistical, rather than deterministic, way. We introduce two new elements into the classical econometric analysis: a subjective guess on the variable to be forecasted and a probability reflecting the confidence associated to it. We then propose a new forecast estimator based on a test of whether the first derivatives of the loss function evaluated at the subjective guess are statistically different from zero. We show that the classical estimator is a special case of this new estimator, and that in general the two estimators are asymptotically equivalent. We illustrate the implications of this new theory with a simple simulation, an application to GDP forecast and an example of mean-variance portfolio selection.

When valuing risky prospects, people typically overweight small probabilities and underweight medium and large probabilities, but there is vast heterogeneity in individual behavior. We explore the relationship between person-specific probability weights, estimated from investment decisions in a laboratory experiment, and personal characteristics. We find considerable interaction effects with gender. While women’s probability weighting is strongly and significantly susceptible to mood states, men’s is not. Moreover, we show that cheerful and optimistic people weight probabilities of investment gains more favorably than do pessimistic people. People who calculate expected payoffs are less prone to probability distortions than those who do not use a lottery’s expected value as a decision criterion. None of the factors studied impact subjects’ valuations of monetary outcomes.