Higher order risk preferences are important determinants of economic behaviour. We apply behavioural insights to this topic: we measure higher order risk preferences for pure gains and pure losses by controlling the reference point. We find a reflection effect not only for second order risk preferences, as in Kahneman and Tversky (1979), but also for higher order risk preferences: we find risk aversion, prudence and intemperance for gains, but risk loving preferences, imprudence and temperance for losses. The risk aversion and intemperance for gains and the imprudence for losses is evidence against a preference for combining good with bad or good with good, which previous theoretical and empirical results suggest may underlie higher order risk preferences.
Higher order risk preferences are important determinants of economic behaviour. We apply insights from behavioural economics: we measure higher order risk preferences for pure gains and losses. We find a reflection effect not only for second order risk preferences, like Kahneman and Tversky (1979), but also for higher order risk preferences: we find risk aversion, prudence and intemperance for gains, and much more risk loving preferences, imprudence and temperance for losses. These findings are at odds with a universal preference for combining good with bad or good with good, which previous results suggest may underlie higher order risk preferences.
An important societal problem is that people underinsure against risks that are unlikely or occur in the far future, such as natural disasters and long-term care needs. One explanation is that uncertainty about the risk of non-reimbursement induces ambiguity averse and risk prudent decision makers to take out less insurance. We set up an insurance experiment to test this explanation. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, we find that the demand for insurance is lower when the nonperformance risk is ambiguous than when it is known and when decision makers are risk prudent. We cannot attribute the lower take-up of insurance to our measure of ambiguity aversion, probably because ambiguity attitudes are richer than aversion alone.
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