• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.433-438
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• 2018

This study examined the effects of ambiguity aversion on the self-protection and self-insurance efforts using a two-period model to consider the time difference between making an effort and occurring loss, which is in contrast with the existing one-period model. The loss follows a binary distribution while the distribution is ambiguous. The distribution depends on the state variable. First, the effort of ambiguity averse individuals is not always greater than that of ambiguity neutral ones. Second, the effects of absolute ambiguity aversion (AAA), which does not appear in one-period model, were observed. Not-increasing AAA is a sufficient condition to increase the efforts of ambiguity averse individuals compared to those of ambiguity neutral ones. In addition, the change in effort also depends on the probability function of the state. Lastly, the results hold even when the individual is risk neutral or risk loving. As a result, ambiguity aversion needs to be considered independently with risk aversion.