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Decision-making under risk: when is utility maximization equivalent to risk minimization?

2023/11/13 by Francesco Ruscitti, Ruscitti, Francesco, Ram Sewak Dubey +3
Decision Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #FOS: Economics and business #Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life #Risk and Portfolio Optimization #Theoretical Economics (econ.TH)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2311.07269

openalex publication_date 2023/11/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Motivated by the analysis of a general optimal portfolio selection problem, which encompasses as special cases an optimal consumption and an optimal debt-arrangement problem, we are concerned with the questions of how a personality trait like risk-perception can be formalized and whether the two objectives of utility-maximization and risk-minimization can be both achieved simultaneously. We address these questions by developing an axiomatic foundation of preferences for which utility-maximization is equivalent to minimizing a utility-based shortfall risk measure. Our axiomatization hinges on a novel axiom in decision theory, namely the risk-perception axiom.

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