Exam 20: Uncertainty and Information

If an individual has a 0.3 probability of receiving $10 and a 0.7 probability of receiving $20, the expected income is

There is a growing market for buying and selling information about the online behavior of consumers. Most people use one of only a small number of search engines (such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo!) when surfing the net. It has been hard for new search engines to gain any market share. The market for search is best considered as

The International Maritime Bureau said the waters off Somalia are the world's most dangerous, accounting for nearly a third reported pirate attacks worldwide between January and September 2008. Suppose all boats are insured to $100,000 and pay a premium of $15,000 each. Suppose 10 out of 100 boats are attacked by pirates and these 10 file claims with their insurance. Has the insurance company earned an economic profit?

Dane has a car valued at $20,000 that gives him a utility of 80. There is a 5 percent chance that he will have an accident that will make his car worthless, in which case his utility will be zero. His utility from a wealth of $15,000 is 76. The maximum amount Dane will be willing to pay for insurance is

Expected utility is a weighted average in which the weights are

-A risk averse person has diminishing marginal utility of wealth.

Dan, age 19, may have trouble buying insurance at a low price because

Many residents of the city of Adelphia drive without automobile insurance. Assuming that Adelphia is just like any other city and these are risk averse individuals, which of the following is most likely true?

Pirates have been intensely attacking ships off the shore of Somalia this year. Boat owners have reportedly coughed up more than $30 million in ransom and insurance premiums have shot up. The pirate activity means that the expected utility of wealth of risk averse boat owners who do not have insurance and sail near Somalia is ________.

-Andrew's utility of wealth schedule is depicted in the above table. Andrew is offered a job as a cook which pays $10,000. He is also offered a job as a server which will pay $5,000 if tips are poor and $15,000 if tips are good. There is a 50 percent chance that tips will be poor and a 50 percent chance that tips will be good. Given the nature of Andrew's job offers and his utility of wealth schedule, Andrew's expected utility from working as a cook is ________ and from working as a server is ________.

In an ad for insurance, the text reads "Life's an adventure, and there are plenty of perils awaiting your jewelry: a lost or broken stone, theft, accidental loss, damage, mysterious disappearance Have you thought about insurance?" How does the inclusion of accidental loss and mysterious disappearance create moral hazard?

How can we measure the cost of risk?

-Adriana wants to try working as an independent contractor this summer. She has a 50 percent chance that she will make $9,000 and 50 percent chance that she will make nothing. Her utility of wealth curve is shown in the figure above. What's Adriana's expected utility from taking this job?