Incertezza Knightiana, fallimenti di mercato e Stato sociale

Journal title ECONOMIA PUBBLICA
Author/s Alberto Feduzi
Publishing Year 2006 Issue 2006/3-4 Language Italian
Pages 22 P. 31-52 File size 281 KB
DOI
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

This paper examines the possibility of providing a rigorous theoretical foundation to the piggy-bank function of the welfare state, by considering a recent contribution in the modern decision theory under uncertainty, namely, the knightian decision theory proposed by Bewley (1986). In giving formal expression to Knight’s ideas, by dropping the completeness assumption of the bayesian model and adding an assumption of inertia, this theory explains the absence of betting and insurance without reference to asymmetric information. In this paper, it shall be argued that by explaining why it is difficult to insure uncertain gambles, this theory is also capable of shedding new light on the relevance of public insurance. Despite its name, knightian decision theory bears certain resemblances to Keynes’s ideas rather than Knight’s. In this respect, it seems more appropriate to refer to this theory as pseudo-knightian decision theory.

Alberto Feduzi, Incertezza Knightiana, fallimenti di mercato e Stato sociale in "ECONOMIA PUBBLICA " 3-4/2006, pp 31-52, DOI: