• Journal of Environmental Policy
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.57-73
• /
• 2008

This short paper considers the situation where an environmental policy could play a source of an exogenous background risk at an individual's wealth and analyzes the effect of such a background risk on the individual's decision making in a simple chance-improving model. Our analysis shows that risks at initial wealth generated by an environmental policy could be regarded as an exogenous background risk in many cases and that such a risk makes a risk averse person behave more risk aversely in some restricted decision making situations. A policy maker considering an environmental policy which would affect individuals' initial wealth should take into account that the environmental policy could affect an individual's seemingly irrelevant economics decisions via his or her wealth.