AN EVOLUTIONARY MODEL OF TASTE FOR RISK

Abstract

Economists take tastes as given. However, tastes must be derived from biological models of evolutionary survival; we exhibit those tastes which served to make our ancestors survive. In particular, economists have no theory which explains observed behavior towards risk; rather, we take behavior as a datum. In this paper we present a model which explains risk seeking by adolescents and risk aversion by mature males as the result of an evolutionary mechanism.