Estimating Ambiguity Aversion in a Portfolio Choice Experiment

old_uid3845
titleEstimating Ambiguity Aversion in a Portfolio Choice Experiment
start_date2008/01/18
schedule10h
onlineno
summaryWe report a laboratory experiment that enables us to estimate four prominent models of ambiguity aversion : Subjective Expected Utility (SEU), Maxmin Expected Utility (MEU), Recursive ExpectedUtility (REU), and A-Maxmin Expected Utility (A-MEU) at the level of the individual subject. We employ graphical representations ofthree-dimensional budget sets over bundles of Arrow securities, one of which promises a unit payoff with a known probability and two with unknown (ambiguous) probabilities. The sample exhibits considerable heterogeneity in preferences, as captured through parameter estimates. Nonetheless, there exists a strong tendency to equate the demands for the securities that pay off in the ambiguous states. This feature is more easily accommodated by the A-MEU model than by the REU model.
responsiblesBourgeois-Gironde