Decision Making Under Natural Hazard Risk

This dissertation consists of three essays that seek to improve the understanding of how individualsmake decisions under the risk and uncertainty associated with natural hazards. The second chapter of the dissertation addresses a long standing identification problem in the experimental elicitation of domain specific risk preferences. The work presented in the third chapter of the dissertation classifies the accuracy of homeowners perceptions of natural hazard risk and identifies determinants that influence formation of those perceptions. Chapter four presents and estimates a structural expected utility model over the decision to purchase flood insurance and shows that the canonical framework for analyzing decision making under risk and uncertainty appears to be a valid descriptor of observed behavior.