Skip to main content

Insuring Risk-Averse Agents

  • Conference paper
Algorithmic Decision Theory (ADT 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5783))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 1028 Accesses

Abstract

In this paper we explicitly model risk aversion in multiagent interactions. We propose an insurance mechanism that be can used by risk-averse agents to mitigate against risky outcomes and to improve their expected utility. Given a game, we show how to derive Pareto-optimal insurance policies, and determine whether or not the proposed insurance policy will change the underlying dynamics of the game (i.e., the equilibrium). Experimental results indicate that our approach is both feasible and effective at reducing risk for agents.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Arrow, K.: Essays in the Theory of Risk-Bearing. North-Holland, Amsterdam (1971)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Arrow, K., Debreu, G.: Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy. Econometrica 22(3), 265–290 (1954)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Borch, K.: The Mathematical Theory of Insurance. Lexington Books (1974)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Swiss Reinsurance Company. World insurance in 2006: Premiums came back to “life” (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Conitzer, V., Sandholm, T.: AWESOME: A general multiagent learning algorithm that converges in self-play and learns a best response against stationary opponents. Machine Learning 67(1-2), 23–43 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Goeree, J.K., Holt, C.A., Palfrey, T.R.: Risk averse behavior in generalized matching pennies games. Games and Economic Behavior 45(1), 97–113 (2003)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Lam, Y.-H., Zhang, Z., Ong, K.-L.: Insurance Services in Multi-agent Systems. In: Zhang, S., Jarvis, R.A. (eds.) AI 2005. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3809, pp. 664–673. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Mas-Colell, A., Whinston, M., Green, J.R.: Microeconomic Theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1995)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Page, F.H.: Optimal auction design with risk aversion and correlated information. Technical report, Tilburg University (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Papadimitriou, C.H., Roughgarden, T.: Computing correlated equilibria in multi-player games. Journal of the ACM 55(3) (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Rabin, M.: Risk aversion and expected-utility theory: A calibration theorem. Econometrica 68, 1281–1292 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Raviv, A.: The design of an optimal insurance policy. The American Economic Review 69, 84–96 (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Robu, V., Poutré, H.L.: Designing bidding strategies in sequential auctions for risk averse agents: A theoretical and experimental investigation. In: Proceedings of the 9th Workshop on Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce, Honolulu, USA, pp. 76–89 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Rothschild, M., Stiglitz, J.: Equilibrium in competitive insurance markets: An essay on the economics of imperfect information. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 90, 629–649 (1976)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Rozenfeld, O., Tennenholtz, M.: Routing mediators. In: Proceedings of IJCAI 2007, Hyderabad, India, pp. 1488–1493 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Shoham, Y., Powers, R., Grenager, T.: If multiagent learning is the answer, what is the question? Artificial Intelligence 171(7), 365–377 (2007)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  17. Stiglitz, J.: Nobel lecture (2001), http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2001/stiglitz-lecture.pdf

  18. Tversky, A., Kahneman, D.: Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5(4), 297–323 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Hines, G., Larson, K. (2009). Insuring Risk-Averse Agents. In: Rossi, F., Tsoukias, A. (eds) Algorithmic Decision Theory. ADT 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5783. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04428-1_26

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04428-1_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-04427-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-04428-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics