Uncertainty, Production, Choice, and Agency: The State-Contingent Approach

by Robert G. Chambers, John Quiggin

Overview

This book demonstrates that the state-contingent approach provides the best way to think about all problems in the economics of uncertainty, including problems of consumer choice, the theory of the firm, and principal agent relationships. The authors demonstrate that dual methods apply under uncertainty and that the dual representations can be developed for stochastic technologies. Moreover, proper exploitation of the properties of alternative primal and dual representations of preferences allows analysts to generalize and extend the results of the existing literature on preferences under uncertainty, thus making expected-utility theory largely superfluous for many decisions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521785235
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/18/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	390
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.87(d)

Table of Contents

1. States of nature; 2. State-contingent production; 3. Risk aversion, preferences, and probability; 4. Indirect and dual representations of stochastic technologies; 5. State-contingent production: the theory; 6. Production with futures and forward markets; 7. Production insurance; 8. Production and non point source pollution regulation; 9. The moral hazard problem; 10. Endogenous reservation utility: agency and exploitation.

Editorial Reviews

'… tremendous scope of achievement in this signal contribution to the literature … I would be remiss in doing other than recommend that Journal readers join me in treasuring this book in their library.' The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics

From the Publisher