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Risk-averse

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Updated: Aug 20, 2021

An individual is risk-averse if they prefer a certain pay-off of M to a risky prospect with an expected pay-off of M. This will be true whenever the marginal utility of wealth is decreasing, so the utility function is strictly concave. A risk-averse individual will not accept an actuarially fair gamble, and will pay a risk premium to avoid randomness of pay-offs.

Reference: Oxford Press Dictonary of Economics, 5th edt.


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James Knight
Editor of Education
James is a lead content editor for Invezz. He's an avid trader and golfer, who spends an inordinate amount of time watching Leicester City and the… read more.