We consider three broad types of employment contract vis, self-employment, PRP, and fixed wage employment. We focus on the implied degree of income risk associated with each type of employment contract, arguing that such risk falls as we move from self-employment at one extreme to fixed wage employment at the other. We investigate the possibility that there is a systematic relationship between employment within a particular contract type and risk preference as proxied by expenditure on risky goods and goods associated with risk averse behaviour. A typical question might be: 'do self-employed individuals attempt to compensate for the relatively high level of income risk they face by reducing their expenditure on relatively risky goods? Or, do such individuals have a taste for risk which they express in both their working and non-working life?' Our empirical analysis, based on pooled cross-section data drawn from the British Family Expenditure Survey 1997-2000, provides evidence of a systematic relationship between employment contract type and risk preference, with, for example, self-employed workers being more (less) likely to engage in the consumption of "risky" (financial security) products. The results are based the Ordered Generalized Extreme Values model (OGEV), a relatively infrequently used discrete choice model, which importantly allows for ordering and correlation in the observed alternatives.
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Length: 33 pages Date of creation: 2002 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:845
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Blanchflower, David G & Oswald, Andrew J, 1998.
"What Makes an Entrepreneur?,"
Journal of Labor Economics,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 26-60, January.
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Yannis Georgellis & Howard J. Wall, 2000.
"Who are the self-employed?,"
Review,
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Dec, pages 15-24.
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