IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v96y2020i313p140-152.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experimental Evidence on Socioeconomic Differences in Risk‐Taking and Risk Premiums

Author

Listed:
  • Zheng Li

Abstract

Using a route choice experiment with embedded travel time variability, this study empirically estimates car commuters’ risk attitudes and taste preferences within a nonlinear mixed logit model. In addition to the identified overall risk‐taking behaviour, we find that risk attitudes covary with some sociodemographic characteristics, that is, older commuters are more risk‐taking than young ones and higher‐income commuters are less risk‐taking than low‐income ones. The implications of accounting for systematic risk attitude heterogeneity for valuing travellers’ willingness to pay for travel time improvement are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Zheng Li, 2020. "Experimental Evidence on Socioeconomic Differences in Risk‐Taking and Risk Premiums," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 96(313), pages 140-152, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:96:y:2020:i:313:p:140-152
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-4932.12544
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4932.12544
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-4932.12544?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2010. "Are Risk Aversion and Impatience Related to Cognitive Ability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1238-1260, June.
    2. Keiran Sharpe, 2018. "On Risk and Uncertainty, and Objective versus Subjective Probability," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(S1), pages 49-72, June.
    3. repec:feb:framed:0074 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Lex Borghans & Bart H. H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 649-658, 04-05.
    5. Dillenberger, David & Rozen, Kareen, 2015. "History-dependent risk attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 445-477.
    6. Zack Dorner & Daniel A. Brent & Anke Leroux, 2019. "Preferences for Intrinsically Risky Attributes," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 95(4), pages 494-514.
    7. Fred Schroyen & Karl Ove Aarbu, 2018. "Attitudes Towards Large Income Risk in Welfare States: An International Comparison," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(340), pages 846-872, October.
    8. Hao, Li & Houser, Daniel & Mao, Lei & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2016. "Migrations, risks, and uncertainty: A field experiment in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 126-140.
    9. Saha, Atanu, 1997. "Risk Preference Estimation in the Nonlinear Mean Standard Deviation Approach," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 770-782, October.
    10. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "On the Relationship between Cognitive Ability and Risk Preference," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 115-134, Spring.
    11. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    12. Deck, Cary & Lee, Jungmin & Reyes, Javier A. & Rosen, Christopher C., 2013. "A failed attempt to explain within subject variation in risk taking behavior using domain specific risk attitudes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1-24.
    13. Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Arthur van Soest & Erik Wengstrom, 2011. "Heterogeneity in Risky Choice Behavior in a Broad Population," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 664-694, April.
    14. Li, Zheng & Hensher, David A. & Rose, John M., 2010. "Willingness to pay for travel time reliability in passenger transport: A review and some new empirical evidence," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 384-403, May.
    15. 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.
    16. Andersen, Steffen & Harrison, Glenn W. & Lau, Morten Igel & Rutström, E. Elisabet, 2010. "Preference heterogeneity in experiments: Comparing the field and laboratory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 209-224, February.
    17. Eckel, Catherine C. & El-Gamal, Mahmoud A. & Wilson, Rick K., 2009. "Risk loving after the storm: A Bayesian-Network study of Hurricane Katrina evacuees," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 110-124, February.
    18. Glenn W Harrison & John A List & Charles Towe, 2007. "Naturally Occurring Preferences and Exogenous Laboratory Experiments: A Case Study of Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 433-458, March.
    19. 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.
    20. Robert Bain, 2009. "Error and optimism bias in toll road traffic forecasts," Transportation, Springer, vol. 36(5), pages 469-482, September.
    21. Gangadharan, Lata & Harrison, Glenn W. & Leroux, Anke D., 2019. "Are risks over multiple attributes traded off? A case study of aid," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 166-198.
    22. Lata Gangadharan & Veronika Nemes, 2009. "Experimental Analysis Of Risk And Uncertainty In Provisioning Private And Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 146-164, January.
    23. Yaniv Hanoch & Jonathan J. Rolison & Alexandra M. Freund, 2018. "Does Medical Risk Perception and Risk Taking Change with Age?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(5), pages 917-928, May.
    24. Anna Conte & M. Vittoria Levati & Chiara Nardi, 2018. "Risk Preferences and the Role of Emotions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(338), pages 305-328, April.
    25. Hensher, David A. & Goodwin, Phil, 2004. "Using values of travel time savings for toll roads: avoiding some common errors," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 171-181, April.
    26. Antonio Bento & Kevin Roth & Andrew R. Waxman, 2020. "The Value of Urgency: Evidence from Real-Time Congestion Pricing," NBER Working Papers 26956, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Arthur van Soest & Erik Wengstrom, 2011. "Heterogeneity in Risky Choice Behavior in a Broad Population," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 664-694, April.
    28. Rolfe, John & Bennett, Jeff, 2009. "The impact of offering two versus three alternatives in choice modelling experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 1140-1148, February.
    29. Friedl, Andreas & Pondorfer, Andreas & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2020. "Gender differences in social risk taking," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    30. Dixit, Vinayak V. & Harb, Rami C. & Martínez-Correa, Jimmy & Rutström, Elisabet E., 2015. "Measuring risk aversion to guide transportation policy: Contexts, incentives, and respondents," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 15-34.
    31. repec:wly:soecon:v:82:1:y:2015:p:235-256 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Glenn W. Harrison & Andre Hofmeyr & Don Ross & J. Todd Swarthout, 2018. "Risk Preferences, Time Preferences, and Smoking Behavior," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(2), pages 313-348, October.
    33. Lex Borghans & Bart H.H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity," Working Papers 200903, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    34. Nancy Ammon Jianakoplos & Alexandra Bernasek, 2006. "Financial Risk Taking by Age and Birth Cohort," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 981-1001, April.
    35. Roger H. von Haefen & D. Matthew Massey & Wiktor L. Adamowicz, 2005. "Serial Nonparticipation in Repeated Discrete Choice Models," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(4), pages 1061-1076.
    36. Page, Lionel & Savage, David A. & Torgler, Benno, 2014. "Variation in risk seeking behaviour following large losses: A natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 121-131.
    37. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Imas, Alex, 2013. "Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 43-51.
    38. Yehuda Izhakian & Simon Benninga, 2011. "The Uncertainty Premium in an Ambiguous Economy," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(02), pages 323-354.
    39. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    40. Graham Loomes & Ganna Pogrebna, 2014. "Measuring Individual Risk Attitudes when Preferences are Imprecise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(576), pages 569-593, May.
    41. Zheng Li & Alejandro Tirachini & David A. Hensher, 2012. "Embedding Risk Attitudes in a Scheduling Model: Application to the Study of Commuting Departure Time," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 170-188, May.
    42. Li, Zheng & Hensher, David A., 2012. "Estimating values of travel time savings for toll roads: Avoiding a common error," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 60-66.
    43. Giselle Moraes Ramos & Winnie Daamen & Serge Hoogendoorn, 2014. "A State-of-the-Art Review: Developments in Utility Theory, Prospect Theory and Regret Theory to Investigate Travellers' Behaviour in Situations Involving Travel Time Uncertainty," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 46-67, January.
    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. Filippin, Antonio & Crosetto, Paolo, 2014. "A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 8184, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Galizzi, Matteo M. & Machado, Sara R. & Miniaci, Raffaele, 2016. "Temporal stability, cross-validity, and external validity of risk preferences measures: experimental evidence from a UK representative sample," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67554, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Ola Andersson & Håkan J. Holm & Jean-Robert Tyran & Erik Wengström, 2020. "Robust inference in risk elicitation tasks," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 195-209, December.
    4. Nolan, Anne & Whelan, Adele & McGuinness, Seamus & Maître, Bertrand, 2019. "Gender, pensions and income in retirement," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS87, June.
    5. Piovesan, Marco & Willadsen, Helene, 2021. "Risk preferences and personality traits in children and adolescents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 523-532.
    6. Menkhoff, Lukas & Sakha, Sahra, 2014. "Multiple-item risk measures," Kiel Working Papers 1980, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    7. 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.
    8. Andreoni, James & Di Girolamo, Amalia & List, John A. & Mackevicius, Claire & Samek, Anya, 2020. "Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 729-742.
    9. Tamás Csermely & Alexander Rabas, 2016. "How to reveal people’s preferences: Comparing time consistency and predictive power of multiple price list risk elicitation methods," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 107-136, December.
    10. Utteeyo Dasgupta & Subha Mani & Smriti Sharma & Saurabh Singhal, 2016. "Eliciting risk preferences: Firefighting in the field," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-47, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Menkhoff, Lukas & Sakha, Sahra, 2017. "Estimating risky behavior with multiple-item risk measures," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 59-86.
    12. Zheng Li & Jingjing Zeng, 2023. "Increasing relative risk taking in a choice context with source-dependent travel time risks," Transportation, Springer, vol. 50(6), pages 2441-2460, December.
    13. Hakan J. Holm & Sonja Opper & Victor Nee, 2013. "Entrepreneurs Under Uncertainty: An Economic Experiment in China," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(7), pages 1671-1687, July.
    14. Zuzana Brokesova & Cary Deck & Jana Peliova, 2016. "Bringing a Natural Experiment into the Laboratory: the Measurement of Individual Risk Attitudes," Working Papers 16-06, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    15. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    16. James Alm & Antoine Malézieux, 2021. "40 years of tax evasion games: a meta-analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 699-750, September.
    17. Ola Andersson & Håkan J. Holm & Jean-Robert Tyran & Erik Wengström, 2016. "Deciding for Others Reduces Loss Aversion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 29-36, January.
    18. Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Mani, Subha & Sharma, Smriti & Singhal, Saurabh, 2016. "Eliciting Risk Preferences: Firefighting in the Field," IZA Discussion Papers 9765, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Zexuan Wang & Ismaël Rafaï & Marc Willinger, 2023. "Does age affect the relation between risk and time preferences? Evidence from a representative sample," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 90(2), pages 341-368, October.
    20. Dixit, Vinayak V. & Harb, Rami C. & Martínez-Correa, Jimmy & Rutström, Elisabet E., 2015. "Measuring risk aversion to guide transportation policy: Contexts, incentives, and respondents," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 15-34.

    More about this item

    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:bla:ecorec:v:96:y:2020:i:313:p:140-152. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.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.