Published Papers
Attitudes towards Natural Sources of Uncertainty for Gains and Losses
(with M. El Guide, Y. Kaouane, H. Zouiten)
Theory and Decision, 2025
Little is known about how ambiguity attitudes change when consequences are flipped from gains to losses, particularly in the context of natural sources. Focusing on two such sources of uncertainty - the voter participation rates in the 2019 European elections in France and the UK - we report econometric estimations that jointly capture parametric specifications of attitudes and beliefs in the gain and loss domains. For checking purposes, we also compute indexes of ambiguity attitudes proposed by Baillon et al. (2018). According to our data, attitudes in the loss domain can be inferred from those in the gain domain. Our findings show no significant differences in attitudes between the two natural sources. Furthermore, we observe no differences in beliefs for both sources, regardless of the outcome sign. Our method, which focuses on matching probabilities, offers an efficient approach for investigating ambiguity attitudes and beliefs for natural sources of uncertainty across gains and losses, particularly beneficial in field studies where data collection capabilities may be limited.
Keywords: Decision under uncertainty, Ambiguity, Natural source, Beliefs, Reflection, Duality
Read on Springer
The Trust-to-investment Experimental Framework for Studying Entrepreneurship
(with B. Boulu-Reshef, A. Calmettes, K. Istrefi, G. Kuechle, L. M. Rohland)
Revue de l’Entrepreneuriat, 2024
This article proposes a methodological tool for experimental research into entrepreneurial behavior. It presents an experimental framework for studying the investor-entrepreneur relationship. Extensions are proposed to assess the impact of information and incentives on this relationship. This improved framework takes into account information asymmetries, the strategies used to mitigate them, contractual arrangements, the investor’s perception of the entrepreneur’s capabilities, the reputation of entrepreneurs and investors in short- and long-term relationships, and the effects of multiple investors, such as in crowdfunding contexts.
Keywords: Behavioral Entrepreneurship, Experimental Method in Entrepreneurship Research, Investment, Investor-entrepreneur Relationship, Trust
Read article
Work in Progress
(In)Consistency of Beliefs and Attitudes Under Uncertainty: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
(with E. Kemel)
Working Paper, 2024
Expected utility (EU), the model of rational choice under uncertainty is highly tractable: decisions depend only on probabilities capturing beliefs, and a utility function capturing attitudes that are stable within and between sources of uncertainty. However, the consistency of beliefs (and attitudes) under uncertainty within (and between) sources remains relatively unexplored. This paper extensively investigates beliefs and attitudes under uncertainty, considering both risk (objective probabilities) and ambiguity (subjective probabilities) based on a unified theoretical, econometric and experimental framework. We implement our framework on incentivized choices involving gains and losses conditionally on a natural and ambiguous source: the voter turnout at the European parliament elections in the UK. We also apply it to choices involving a risky source (with objective probabilities), considered as a benchmark for consistency checks. Firstly, we assess the calibration and consistency of the estimated beliefs. Secondly, we test whether the within-source inconsistencies generally observed under risk also hold for the ambiguous source. Thirdly, we study ambiguity attitudes, defined as the inconsistency of attitudes between our two sources. The results show that inconsistencies generally observed under risk also hold under ambiguity, and ambiguity aversion prevails. Nevertheless, the estimated beliefs are well-calibrated and consistent when EU-deviations are properly accounted for.
Read on SSRN
Hedging Against Ambiguity? Exploring Diversification through Ambiguity Attitudes and Perception
(with E. Bouacida)
Working Paper, 2024
This paper studies whether individuals use randomization as a strategy to hedge against ambiguity. In our experiment, we separate ambiguity attitudes from ambiguity perception and vary objective ambiguity perception through the number of possible urn compositions and manipulate the correlation between the urns (positive, negative, independent) to study their impact on randomization behavior. We elicit ambiguity attitudes and subjective beliefs using matching probabilities, allowing us to compute subjective ambiguity perception. Controlling for compound risk attitudes, we find that neither ambiguity attitudes nor ambiguity perception significantly influence the decision to randomize in our experimental setup. Additionally, our results show that the type of correlation between ambiguous urns does not impact the decision to randomize. This study highlights the complexity of the topic in question and the lack of empirical findings, calling for more empirical research in this direction.
Fellowships and Grants
- 2020 – EUR PGSE Research Grant
Project: Preference for Randomization and Ambiguity-Hedging - 2019–2021 – Member of ANR (French National Research Agency)
Project: Ambiguity in Dynamic Environments (PI: Jean-Marc Tallon, PSE) - 2019 – EUR PGSE Research Grant
Project: Econometric Estimation of Prospect Theory for Natural Uncertainty - 2018–2022 – PhD Fellowship (with extension), University of Paris 1
Seminars and Conferences
2024
- Behavioral Transformations Workshop, London School of Economics
- Economics & Public Policy Seminar, Imperial College Business School
- Centre for Public Health and Policy Seminar, Imperial College Business School
2023
- Behavioral Economics Workshop, Solomon Lew Center for Consumer Behavior, Tel Aviv University
2022
- Bounded Rationality Workshop, Solomon Lew Center for Consumer Behavior, Tel Aviv University
- iRisk Research Seminar, IESEG School of Management
- French Association of Experimental Economics Conference, University of Lyon
- Behavioral Economics Conference, Tel Aviv University
2021
- Theory, Organisation and Markets Seminar, Paris School of Economics
2020
- Decision: Theory, Experiments, and Applications Workshop on Prospect Theory, HEC Paris
- Economic Theory Seminar, University of Bielefeld
- Behavior Group Seminar, Paris School of Economics
2019
- French Association of Experimental Economics Conference, Toulouse School of Economics
- EDEEM Doctoral Summer Workshop in Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
- Ambiguity in Dynamic Environments Workshop, University of Bielefeld
- Behavior Group Seminar, Paris School of Economics
2018
- Organizations and Markets Workshop, LESSAC, Dijon
The Trust-to-investment Experimental Framework for Studying Entrepreneurship
(with B. Boulu-Reshef, A. Calmettes, K. Istrefi, G. Kuechle, L. M. Rohland)
Revue de l’Entrepreneuriat, 2024
This article proposes a methodological tool for experimental research into entrepreneurial behavior. It presents an experimental framework for studying the investor-entrepreneur relationship. Extensions are proposed to assess the impact of information and incentives on this relationship.
Keywords: Behavioral Entrepreneurship, Experimental Method, Investment, Trust
Read article
Work in Progress
(In)Consistency of Beliefs and Attitudes Under Uncertainty: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
(with E. Kemel)
Working Paper, 2024
Expected utility (EU), the model of rational choice under uncertainty, is highly tractable: decisions depend only on probabilities capturing beliefs, and a utility function capturing attitudes that are stable within and between sources of uncertainty. However, the consistency of beliefs (and attitudes) under uncertainty remains relatively unexplored.
Read on SSRN
Hedging Against Ambiguity? Exploring Diversification through Ambiguity Attitudes and Perception
(with E. Bouacida)
Working Paper, 2024
This paper studies whether individuals use randomization as a strategy to hedge against ambiguity. […] Our results show that the type of correlation between ambiguous urns does not impact the decision to randomize.
Fellowships and Grants
- 2020 – EUR PGSE Research Grant
Project: Preference for Randomization and Ambiguity-Hedging - 2019–2021 – Member of ANR (French National Research Agency)
Project: Ambiguity in Dynamic Environments (PI: Jean-Marc Tallon, PSE) - 2019 – EUR PGSE Research Grant
Project: Econometric Estimation of Prospect Theory for Natural Uncertainty - 2018–2022 – PhD Fellowship (with extension), University of Paris 1
Seminars and Conferences
2024
- Behavioral Transformations Workshop, London School of Economics
- Economics & Public Policy Seminar, Imperial College Business School
- Centre for Public Health and Policy Seminar, Imperial College Business School
2023
- Behavioral Economics Workshop, Solomon Lew Center for Consumer Behavior, Tel Aviv University
2022
- Bounded Rationality Workshop, Solomon Lew Center for Consumer Behavior, Tel Aviv University
- iRisk Research Seminar, IESEG School of Management
- French Association of Experimental Economics Conference, University of Lyon
- Behavioral Economics Conference, Tel Aviv University
2021
- Theory, Organisation and Markets Seminar, Paris School of Economics
2020
- Decision: Theory, Experiments, and Applications Workshop on Prospect Theory, HEC Paris
- Economic Theory Seminar, University of Bielefeld
- Behavior Group Seminar, Paris School of Economics
2019
- French Association of Experimental Economics Conference, Toulouse School of Economics
- EDEEM Doctoral Summer Workshop in Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
- Ambiguity in Dynamic Environments Workshop, University of Bielefeld
- Behavior Group Seminar, Paris School of Economics
2018
- Organizations and Markets Workshop, LESSAC, Dijon