Browsing by Subject "Risk aversion"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Ascending Combinatorial Auctions with Risk Averse Bidders
(Springer, 2016) Guler, K.; Bichler, M.; Petrakis I.
Ascending combinatorial auctions are being used in an increasing number of spectrum sales worldwide, as well as in other multi-item markets in procurement and logistics. Much research has focused on pricing and payment rules in such ascending auctions. However, recent game-theoretical research has shown that such auctions can even lead to inefficient perfect Bayesian equilibria with risk-neutral bidders. There is a fundamental free-rider problem without a simple solution, raising the question whether ascending combinatorial auctions can be expected to be efficient in the field. Risk aversion is arguably a significant driver of bidding behavior in high-stakes auctions. We analyze the impact of risk aversion on equilibrium bidding strategies and efficiency in a threshold problem with one global and several local bidders. Due to the underlying free-rider problem, the impact of risk-aversion on equilibrium bidding strategies of local bidders is not obvious. We characterize the necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect Bayesian equilibria of the ascending auction mechanism to have the local bidders to drop at the reserve price. Interestingly, in spite of the free-riding opportunities of local bidders, risk-aversion reduces the scope of the non-bidding equilibrium. The results help explain the high efficiency of ascending combinatorial auctions observed in the lab.
Open Access
Chapter 22: Futures and options
(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023-05-18) Gürkaynak, Refet S.; Wright, Jonathan H.
We survey the history, market structure, pricing and usage of futures and options contracts. We focus in particular on their ability to provide high-frequency measures of expectations, uncertainty, higher moments, and investor risk aversion. Futures and options are a rich and growing treasure trove of information to academics and policymakers alike.
Open Access
Hit or miss? Test taking behavior in multiple choice exams
(Groupe des Ecoles Nationales d'Economie et Statistique (GENES), 2022-09) Akyol, Pelin
This paper is the first to structurally model how a test taker answers questions in a multiple choice exam. We allow for the possibility of a penalty for a wrong answer which makes risk averse examinees more likely to skip questions. Despite the lack of item response data, we can estimate the model by using the insight that skipping behavior, together with penalties for wrong answers, makes certain scores much more likely than others. Using data from the Turkish University Entrance Exam, we estimate the model and find that candidates’ attitudes towards risk differ according to their gender and ability with females and those with high ability being significantly more risk-averse. However, the impact of differences in risk aversion on scores is small. As a result, a higher guessing penalty increases the precision of the exam, and does so with a minimal impact on gender bias.
Open Access
Managerial motivation dynamics and incentives
(2007) Kocabıyıkoğlu, A.; Popescu, I.
Firms can increase profitability by appropriately motivating managers. We investigate drivers of managerial motivation, and propose how firms can use performance pay to alter motivational patterns. We focus on the agent's optimal effort decision in trading off compensation utility with effort cost in a static and dynamic setting. Surprisingly, we find that lower risk aversion or increased pay are not necessarily motivating factors, and identify the relevant effort drivers underlying the agent's utility and compensation plan. We characterize properties of agents' preferences for output lotteries (risk aversion, aggressiveness, prudence) that trigger systematic motivational patterns with respect to a variety of factors, such as the agent's productivity and past performance, time to evaluation, the firm's capabilities, and market factors. Our insights are robust, holding under very general modeling assumptions on preferences, rewards, and the stochastic effort-output function.