Causes and consequences of uncertainty-seeking behavior

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Trautmann
• Subject Area: Economic Policy, Applied Economics ; Economic Theory
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 286495787

While theoretical research in economics has been preoccupied with the assumption that decision makers are universally uncertainty averse, the empirical literature suggests that uncertainty seeking behavior becomes important in many domains. In particular, uncertainty attitudes seem to vary within person, across domains. To provide a better understanding of the role of uncertainty seeking, the current project aims to elucidate on the psychological foundations, and the economic consequences of these preferences. By probing the foundations of the suggested pattern observed in experiments, and by testing its link to economic behavior outside the lab, we aim to obtain insights into how to improve descriptive models of uncertainty attitudes to better predict people's decisions under uncertainty.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants