Economic and Financial Decisions under Risk

Economic and Financial Decisions under Risk
Author: Louis Eeckhoudt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2011-10-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400829216

An understanding of risk and how to deal with it is an essential part of modern economics. Whether liability litigation for pharmaceutical firms or an individual's having insufficient wealth to retire, risk is something that can be recognized, quantified, analyzed, treated--and incorporated into our decision-making processes. This book represents a concise summary of basic multiperiod decision-making under risk. Its detailed coverage of a broad range of topics is ideally suited for use in advanced undergraduate and introductory graduate courses either as a self-contained text, or the introductory chapters combined with a selection of later chapters can represent core reading in courses on macroeconomics, insurance, portfolio choice, or asset pricing. The authors start with the fundamentals of risk measurement and risk aversion. They then apply these concepts to insurance decisions and portfolio choice in a one-period model. After examining these decisions in their one-period setting, they devote most of the book to a multiperiod context, which adds the long-term perspective most risk management analyses require. Each chapter concludes with a discussion of the relevant literature and a set of problems. The book presents a thoroughly accessible introduction to risk, bridging the gap between the traditionally separate economics and finance literatures.

Handbook of the Fundamentals of Financial Decision Making

Handbook of the Fundamentals of Financial Decision Making
Author: Leonard C. MacLean
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 941
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9814417351

This handbook in two parts covers key topics of the theory of financial decision making. Some of the papers discuss real applications or case studies as well. There are a number of new papers that have never been published before especially in Part II.Part I is concerned with Decision Making Under Uncertainty. This includes subsections on Arbitrage, Utility Theory, Risk Aversion and Static Portfolio Theory, and Stochastic Dominance. Part II is concerned with Dynamic Modeling that is the transition for static decision making to multiperiod decision making. The analysis starts with Risk Measures and then discusses Dynamic Portfolio Theory, Tactical Asset Allocation and Asset-Liability Management Using Utility and Goal Based Consumption-Investment Decision Models.A comprehensive set of problems both computational and review and mind expanding with many unsolved problems are in an accompanying problems book. The handbook plus the book of problems form a very strong set of materials for PhD and Masters courses both as the main or as supplementary text in finance theory, financial decision making and portfolio theory. For researchers, it is a valuable resource being an up to date treatment of topics in the classic books on these topics by Johnathan Ingersoll in 1988, and William Ziemba and Raymond Vickson in 1975 (updated 2 nd edition published in 2006).

Dynamic Economic Decision Making

Dynamic Economic Decision Making
Author: John E. Silvia
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2011-08-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0470920513

A comprehensive analysis of the macroeconomic and financial forces altering the economic landscape Financial decision-making requires one to anticipate how their decision will not only affect their business, but also the economic environment. Unfortunately, all too often, both private and public sector decision-makers view their decisions as one-off responses and fail to see their decisions within the context of an evolving decision-making framework. In Decision-Making in a Dynamic Economic Setting, John Silvia, Chief Economist of Wells Fargo and one of the top 5 economic forecasters according to Bloomberg News and USA Today, skillfully puts this discipline in perspective. Details realistic, decision-making approaches and applications under a broad set of economic scenarios Analyzes monetary policy and addresses the impact of financial regulations Examines business cycles and how to identify economic trends, how to deal with uncertainty and manage risk, the building blocks of growth, and strategies for innovation Decision-Making in a Dynamic Economic Setting details the real-world application of economic principles and financial strategy in making better business decisions.

The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable in Financial Risk Management

The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable in Financial Risk Management
Author: Francis X. Diebold
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2010-05-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691128839

A clear understanding of what we know, don't know, and can't know should guide any reasonable approach to managing financial risk, yet the most widely used measure in finance today--Value at Risk, or VaR--reduces these risks to a single number, creating a false sense of security among risk managers, executives, and regulators. This book introduces a more realistic and holistic framework called KuU --the K nown, the u nknown, and the U nknowable--that enables one to conceptualize the different kinds of financial risks and design effective strategies for managing them. Bringing together contributions by leaders in finance and economics, this book pushes toward robustifying policies, portfolios, contracts, and organizations to a wide variety of KuU risks. Along the way, the strengths and limitations of "quantitative" risk management are revealed. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Ashok Bardhan, Dan Borge, Charles N. Bralver, Riccardo Colacito, Robert H. Edelstein, Robert F. Engle, Charles A. E. Goodhart, Clive W. J. Granger, Paul R. Kleindorfer, Donald L. Kohn, Howard Kunreuther, Andrew Kuritzkes, Robert H. Litzenberger, Benoit B. Mandelbrot, David M. Modest, Alex Muermann, Mark V. Pauly, Til Schuermann, Kenneth E. Scott, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and Richard J. Zeckhauser. Introduces a new risk-management paradigm Features contributions by leaders in finance and economics Demonstrates how "killer risks" are often more economic than statistical, and crucially linked to incentives Shows how to invest and design policies amid financial uncertainty

Forward-Looking Decision Making

Forward-Looking Decision Making
Author: Robert E. Hall
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2010-02-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400835267

Individuals and families make key decisions that impact many aspects of financial stability and determine the future of the economy. These decisions involve balancing current sacrifice against future benefits. People have to decide how much to invest in health care, exercise, their diet, and insurance. They must decide how much debt to take on, and how much to save. And they make choices about jobs that determine employment and unemployment levels. Forward-Looking Decision Making is about modeling this individual or family-based decision making using an optimizing dynamic programming model. Robert Hall first reviews ideas about dynamic programs and introduces new ideas about numerical solutions and the representation of solved models as Markov processes. He surveys recent research on the parameters of preferences--the intertemporal elasticity of substitution, the Frisch elasticity of labor supply, and the Frisch cross-elasticity. He then examines dynamic programming models applied to health spending, long-term care insurance, employment, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and consumer debt. Linking theory with data and applying them to real-world problems, Forward-Looking Decision Making uses dynamic optimization programming models to shed light on individual behaviors and their economic implications.

The Economics of Risk and Time

The Economics of Risk and Time
Author: Christian Gollier
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262572248

Updates and advances the theory of expected utility as applied to risk analysis and financial decision making.

Theory of Decision Under Uncertainty

Theory of Decision Under Uncertainty
Author: Itzhak Gilboa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2009-03-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 052151732X

This book describes the classical axiomatic theories of decision under uncertainty, as well as critiques thereof and alternative theories. It focuses on the meaning of probability, discussing some definitions and surveying their scope of applicability. The behavioral definition of subjective probability serves as a way to present the classical theories, culminating in Savage's theorem. The limitations of this result as a definition of probability lead to two directions - first, similar behavioral definitions of more general theories, such as non-additive probabilities and multiple priors, and second, cognitive derivations based on case-based techniques.

Risk attitude & Economics

Risk attitude & Economics
Author: Laura Concina
Publisher: FonCSI
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN:

This document is an introduction, for non-economists, to standard and behavioral economic theories of risk and uncertainty. It describes some broadly-accepted results in economics that are determinant in decision-making under risk or uncertainty and in situations where we have to deal with losses and gains. To illustrate this point, the document presents a selection of theoretical results, ponctuated with examples taken from everyday life, and research studies in economics and psychology on the perception of risk.

Probability Models for Economic Decisions, second edition

Probability Models for Economic Decisions, second edition
Author: Roger B. Myerson
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 569
Release: 2019-12-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262355604

An introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risk and economic decisions, using spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty. This textbook offers an introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risks and economic decisions. It takes a learn-by-doing approach, teaching the student to use spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty and to analyze the effect of such uncertainty on an economic decision. Students in applied business and economics can more easily grasp difficult analytical methods with Excel spreadsheets. The book covers the basic ideas of probability, how to simulate random variables, and how to compute conditional probabilities via Monte Carlo simulation. The first four chapters use a large collection of probability distributions to simulate a range of problems involving worker efficiency, market entry, oil exploration, repeated investment, and subjective belief elicitation. The book then covers correlation and multivariate normal random variables; conditional expectation; optimization of decision variables, with discussions of the strategic value of information, decision trees, game theory, and adverse selection; risk sharing and finance; dynamic models of growth; dynamic models of arrivals; and model risk. New material in this second edition includes two new chapters on additional dynamic models and model risk; new sections in every chapter; many new end-of-chapter exercises; and coverage of such topics as simulation model workflow, models of probabilistic electoral forecasting, and real options. The book comes equipped with Simtools, an open-source, free software used througout the book, which allows students to conduct Monte Carlo simulations seamlessly in Excel.