Attitudes to Price Risk and Uncertainty: The Earnest Search for Identification and Policy Relevance

作者:Bellemare Marc F*; Lee Yu Na
来源:Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2016, 64(4): 599-612.
DOI:10.1111/cjag.12109

摘要

After several decades of neglect, the food crises of 2007-08 and 2010-11 have brought food price volatility back on the policy agenda. The study of price volatility, however, is really the study of price risk and uncertainty as they relate to individuals, households, and firms. Because the study of behavior in the face of risk and uncertainty has mostly focused on behavior in the face of income risk and uncertainty, we first review the theoretical and empirical literatures on behavior in the face of price risk and uncertainty. Then, because policy recommendations are only as good as the empirical findings on which they are based, and because market-level phenomena such as price risk do not lend themselves well to randomization, we discuss the ways in which experimental economics can inform our understanding of price risk. Finally, because expected utilitythe workhorse model used to study behavior in the face of risk and uncertaintyfails to account for a number of behaviors, we discuss how insights from behavioral economics could be incorporated into the study of price risk, with the ultimate goal of generating more policy-relevant findings.

  • 出版日期2016-12