Example
Suppose a game show participant may choose one of two doors, one that hides $1,000 and one that hides $0. Further suppose that the host also allows the contestant to take $500 instead of choosing a door. The two options (choosing between door 1 and door 2, or taking $500) have the same expected value of $500, so no risk premium is being offered for choosing the doors rather than the guaranteed $500.
A contestant unconcerned about risk is indifferent between these choices. However, a risk averse contestant will choose no door and accept the guaranteed $500.
If too many contestants are risk averse, the game show may encourage selection of the riskier choice (gambling on one of the doors) by offering a risk premium. If the game show offers $1,600 behind the good door, increasing to $800 the expected value of choosing between doors 1 and 2, the risk premium becomes $300 (i.e., $800 expected value minus $500 guaranteed amount). Contestants requiring a minimum risk compensation of less than $300 will choose a door instead of accepting the guaranteed $500.
Read more about this topic: Risk Premium
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“Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for revealing the truth. It is life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies. Then it is that the intellect, observing their superiority, abdicates its control to them upon reasoned grounds and agrees to become their collaborator and lackey.”
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