# A brief synopsis of Finance 4335 course content to date

1. The most important concept covered in Finance 4335 so far centers around the notion that people vary in terms of their preferences for bearing risk.  Although we focused most of our attention in upon modeling risk-averse behavior, we also considered examples of risk neutrality (where you only care about expected wealth and are indifferent about riskiness of wealth) and risk loving (where you actually prefer to bear risk and are willing to pay money for the opportunity to do so).
2. Related to point 1: irrespective of whether you are risk averse, risk neutral, or risk loving, the foundation for decision-making under conditions of risk and uncertainty is expected utility.  Given a choice amongst various risky alternatives, one selects the choice which has the highest utility ranking.
3. If you are risk averse, then $E(W) > {W_{CE}}$ and the difference between $E(W)$  and ${W_{CE}}$ is equal to the risk premium $\lambda$. Some practical implications — if you’re risk averse, then you are okay with buying “expensive” insurance at a price that exceeds the expected value of payment provided by the insurer, since (other things equal) you’d prefer to transfer risk to someone else if it’s not too expensive to do so. On the other hand, you are not willing to pay more than the certainty-equivalent for a bet on a sporting event or a game of chance.
4. If you are risk neutral, then $E(W) = {W_{CE}}$ and $\lambda = 0$; risk is inconsequential and all you care about is maximizing the expected value of wealth.
5. If you are risk loving, then $E(W) < {W_{CE}}$ and $\lambda > 0$; you are quite willing to pay for the opportunity to (on average) lose money.

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