We report an experiment to consider the emotional correlates of prudent decision making. In the experiment, we present subjects with lotteries and measure their emotional response with facial recognition software. They then make binary choices between risky lotteries that distinguish prudent from imprudent individuals. They also perform tasks to measure their cognitive ability and a number of p...

We show how optimal saving in a two-period model is affected when prudence and risk aversion of the underlying utility function change. Increasing prudence alone will induce higher savings only if, for certain combinations of the interest rate and the pure time discount rate, there is distributional neutrality between the two periods. Otherwise, changes of risk aversion that affect the distribu...

We show how optimal saving in a two-period model is affected when prudence and risk aversion of the underlying utility function change. Increasing prudence alone will induce higher savings only if, for certain combinations of the interest rate and the pure time discount rate, there is distributional neutrality between the two periods. Otherwise, changes of risk aversion that affect the distribu...

“In most cases, reasonable prudence is in fact common prudence; but strictly it is never its measure; a whole calling may have unduly lagged in the adoption of new and available devices. It never may set its own tests, however persuasive be its usages. Courts must in the end say what is required; there are precautions so imperative that even their universal disregard will not excuse their omiss...

In this paper we extend the theory of precautionary saving to the case in which uncertainty is multidimensional and we develop a matrix-measure of multivariate prudence. Furthermore, we characterize comparative prudence, decreasing and increasing prudence, the e¤ect of uncertainty on the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth, and the Drèze-Modigliani substitution e¤ect in this multivaria...

This research tested the hypothesis that prudence and altruism, in situations involving future desires, follow a similar developmental course between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Using a modified delay of gratification paradigm, 3to 5-year-olds were tested on their ability to forgo a current opportunity to obtain some stickers in order to gratify their own future desires-or the current or future ...