Trading risk for ambiguity: Production versus health under pesticide application
研究了农药施用如何减少产量波动但增加健康模糊性，发现模糊性下农药降低健康结果波动，而风险下降低健康预期值；健康保险可保护健康但无法消除模糊性影响。
Abstract Pesticide use reduces the variation in crop yields at the expense of potentially negative consequences to farmers and their family members. This article examines the trade‐off between decreasing production risk and increasing health ambiguity because of pesticide use. We find that under ambiguity, pesticide application decreases the variation in health outcomes, whereas under risk, it decreases the expected value of health outcomes. Health insurance protects health from the pesticide damage but not from the ambiguity effect of pesticide application, and the optimal choice of pesticide application does not depend on the farmer's health preferences over risk or ambiguity. However, in the absence of health insurance, ambiguity can increase or decrease the optimal choice of pesticide compared to the risk case. This suggests that public policies around pesticide usage should be designed to reflect and account for the multitude of behavioral responses in the presence of ambiguity and risk.