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Individual Risk Attitudes: New Evidence from a Large, Representative, Experimentally-Validated Survey

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Author Info
Dohmen, Thomas J
Falk, Armin
Huffman, David
Schupp, Jürgen
Sunde, Uwe
Wagner, Gert Georg

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Abstract

This paper presents new evidence on the distribution of risk attitudes in the population, using a novel set of survey questions and a representative sample of roughly 22,000 individuals living in Germany. Using a question that asks about willingness to take risks in general, on an 11-point scale, we find evidence of heterogeneity across individuals, and show that willingness to take risks is negatively related to age and being female, and positively related to height and parental education. We test the behavioral relevance of this survey measure by conducting a complementary field experiment, based on a representative sample of 450 subjects, and find that the general risk question is a good predictor of actual risk-taking behavior. We then use a more standard lottery question to measure risk preferences in our sample of 22,000, and find similar results regarding heterogeneity and determinants of risk preferences, compared to the general risk question. The lottery question also makes it possible to estimate the coefficient of relative risk aversion for each individual in the sample. Using five questions about willingness to take risks in specific domains - car driving, financial matters, sports and leisure, career, and health - the paper also studies the impact of context on risk attitudes, finding a strong but imperfect correlation across contexts. Using data on a collection of risky behaviors from different contexts, including traffic offences, portfolio choice, smoking, occupational choice, participation in sports, and migration, the paper compares the predictive power of all of the risk measures. Strikingly, the general risk question predicts all behaviors whereas the standard lottery measure does not. The best predictor for any specific behavior is typically the corresponding context-specific measure.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5517.

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Date of creation: Feb 2006
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5517

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Related research
Keywords: age; context; experimental validation; field experiment; gender differences; health; height; migration; occupational choice; risk preferences; SOEP; subjective well-being;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
D0 - Microeconomics - - General
D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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