IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0438.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk-taking middle-borns: A study on birth-order and risk preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Lampi, Elina

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Nordblom, Katarina

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

We analyze the impacts of birth order and presence/absence of siblings on risk preferences with respect to economic, health/safety, and sport/lifestyle related risks. We study both the answer to a hypothetical lottery question and stated risky behavior and find that middle-borns are consistently less risk averse than others irrespective of the type of risk. Moreover, the answer to the lottery question is strongly correlated with economic and sport/lifestyle related risky behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2010. "Risk-taking middle-borns: A study on birth-order and risk preferences," Working Papers in Economics 438, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/22177
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donkers, Bas & Melenberg, Bertrand & Van Soest, Arthur, 2001. "Estimating Risk Attitudes Using Lotteries: A Large Sample Approach," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 165-195, March.
    2. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    3. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    4. Warneryd, Karl-Erik, 1996. "Risk attitudes and risky behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 749-770, December.
    5. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "Men, Women and Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 113, pages 1061-1073, Elsevier.
    6. Anderson, Lisa R. & Mellor, Jennifer M., 2008. "Predicting health behaviors with an experimental measure of risk preference," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1260-1274, September.
    7. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    8. Laura M. Argys & Daniel I. Rees & Susan L. Averett & Benjama Witoonchart, 2006. "Birth Order and Risky Adolescent Behavior," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(2), pages 215-233, April.
    9. Powell, Melanie & Ansic, David, 1997. "Gender differences in risk behaviour in financial decision-making: An experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 605-628, November.
    10. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2012. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Risk and Trust Attitudes," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 645-677.
    11. Beattie, Jane & Loomes, Graham, 1997. "The Impact of Incentives upon Risky Choice Experiments," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 155-168, March.
    12. Joop Hartog & Ada Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell & Nicole Jonker, 2002. "Linking Measured Risk Aversion to Individual Characteristics," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 3-26.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Blake & Edmund Cannon & Douglas Wright, 2021. "Quantifying loss aversion: Evidence from a UK population survey," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 27-57, August.
    2. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    3. Vetter, Stefan & Heiss, Florian & McFadden, Daniel & Winter, Joachim, 2013. "Risk attitudes and Medicare Part D enrollment decisions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 128-132.
    4. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    5. Mark J. Browne & Verena Jäger & Andreas Richter & Petra Steinorth, 2022. "Family changes and the willingness to take risks," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(1), pages 187-209, March.
    6. Chie Hanaoka & Hitoshi Shigeoka & Yasutora Watanabe, 2015. "Do Risk Preferences Change? Evidence from Panel Data before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake," NBER Working Papers 21400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2005. "Individual Risk Attitudes: New Evidence from a Large, Representative, Experimentally-Validated Survey," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 511, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:5:p:591-604 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Lampi, Elina & Nordblom, Katarina, 2009. "Gender and birth-order differences in time and risk preferences and decisions," Working Papers in Economics 388, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised 30 Jun 2011.
    10. J. Francois Outreville, 2014. "Risk Aversion, Risk Behavior, and Demand for Insurance: A Survey," Journal of Insurance Issues, Western Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 37(2), pages 158-186.
    11. Booij, Adam S. & van de Kuilen, Gijs, 2009. "A parameter-free analysis of the utility of money for the general population under prospect theory," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 651-666, August.
    12. Booij, Adam S. & van Praag, Bernard M.S., 2009. "A simultaneous approach to the estimation of risk aversion and the subjective time discount rate," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 374-388, May.
    13. Bertrand, Marianne, 2011. "New Perspectives on Gender," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 17, pages 1543-1590, Elsevier.
    14. Muhammad Sajid & Matthew C. Li, 2019. "The role of cognitive reflection in decision making: Evidence from Pakistani managers," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(5), pages 591-604, September.
    15. Sophie Massin & Antoine Nebout & Bruno Ventelou, 2018. "Predicting medical practices using various risk attitude measures," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(6), pages 843-860, July.
    16. Caliendo, Marco & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Obst, Cosima & Uhlendorff, Arne, 2023. "Risk preferences and training investments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 668-686.
    17. Campos-Vazquez, Raymundo M. & Cuilty, Emilio, 2014. "The role of emotions on risk aversion: A Prospect Theory experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-9.
    18. Claudia R. Sahm, 2007. "Stability of risk preference," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-66, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Adam Booij & Bernard Praag & Gijs Kuilen, 2010. "A parametric analysis of prospect theory’s functionals for the general population," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 115-148, February.
    20. Julie A. Nelson, 2015. "Are Women Really More Risk-Averse Than Men? A Re-Analysis Of The Literature Using Expanded Methods," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 566-585, July.
    21. Alison L. Booth & Pamela Katic, 2013. "Cognitive Skills, Gender and Risk Preferences," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89(284), pages 19-30, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    siblings; birth-order; middle-born; different risks; lottery;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D89 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Other
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0438. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ann-Christin Räätäri Nyström (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.