IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v18y2025i3p121-d1599482.html

A Cross-Sectional Study of Risk Aversion and Life Insurance Demand at the Country Level

Author

Listed:
  • Kristio Rapi

    (School of Business, IPB University, Bogor 16128, Indonesia)

  • Dominicus S. Priyarsono

    (Department of Economics, IPB University, Bogor 16680, Indonesia)

  • Siti Jahroh

    (School of Business, IPB University, Bogor 16128, Indonesia)

  • Toni Bakhtiar

    (Department of Mathematics, IPB University, Bogor 16680, Indonesia)

Abstract

This study measured the risk aversion of nineteen selected countries using Szpiro’s approach and analyzed its effect on life insurance demand. Additionally, income and education were included as control variables and tested for their effects on life insurance demand and risk aversion. The results show a positive effect of risk aversion on life insurance demand, while income has a positive effect and education has a negative effect. We also find that income positively affects risk aversion, while education negatively affects it. These findings support the increasing relative risk aversion hypothesis and have significant implications for life insurance demand and pricing analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristio Rapi & Dominicus S. Priyarsono & Siti Jahroh & Toni Bakhtiar, 2025. "A Cross-Sectional Study of Risk Aversion and Life Insurance Demand at the Country Level," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:18:y:2025:i:3:p:121-:d:1599482
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/18/3/121/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/18/3/121/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:eme:mfppss:03074350310768779 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ministry of Finance,, 2015. "Economic Survey 2014-15," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199460182.
    3. Fujii, Yoichiro & Okura, Mahito & Osaki, Yusuke, 2021. "Is insurance normal or inferior? -A regret theoretical approach-," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    4. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 620-630, October.
    5. Szpiro, George G, 1986. "Measuring Risk Aversion: An Alternative Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(1), pages 156-159, February.
    6. 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.
    7. Granger, C. W. J. & Newbold, P., 1974. "Spurious regressions in econometrics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 111-120, July.
    8. Marc Chesney & Henri Loubergé, 1986. "Risk Aversion and the Composition of Wealth in the Demand for Full Insurance Coverage," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 122(III), pages 359-370, September.
    9. Asis Kumar Senapati, 2024. "Do Farmers Value Insurance Against Extreme Droughts and Floods? Evidence from Odisha, India," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 25(3), pages 561-584, June.
    10. Kaiyu Lyu & Thomas J. Barré, 2017. "Risk aversion in crop insurance program purchase decisions," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 9(1), pages 62-80, February.
    11. J. Francois Outreville, 2013. "Risk Aversion, Risk Behavior and Demand for Insurance: a survey," ICER Working Papers 11-2013, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    12. Maheswaran Srinivasan & Subrata Mitra, 2024. "Determinants of Life Insurance Consumption in OECD Countries Using FMOLS and DOLS Techniques," Risks, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, February.
    13. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Layard, R. & Mayraz, G. & Nickell, S., 2008. "The marginal utility of income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1846-1857, August.
    15. Gary Charness & Thomas Garcia & Theo Offerman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "Do measures of risk attitude in the laboratory predict behavior under risk in and outside of the laboratory?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 99-123, April.
    16. Tomas Kabrt, 2022. "Life Insurance Demand Analysis: Evidence from Visegrad Group Countries," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(1), pages 50-78, January.
    17. Szpiro, George G. & Outreville, Jean-Francois, 1988. "Relative risk aversion around the world : Further results," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(1, Supple), pages 127-128, January.
    18. Milton Friedman & L. J. Savage, 1948. "The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 279-279.
    19. Liam J. A. Lenten & David N. Rulli, 2006. "A Time-Series Analysis of the Demand for Life Insurance Companies in Australia: An Unobserved Components Approach," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 31(1), pages 41-66, June.
    20. Patrick Opoku Asuming & Deborah Aba Gaisie, 2022. "Risk attitudes and demand for insurance: micro evidence from Ghana," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(6), pages 781-794, June.
    21. Kaiyu Lyu & Thomas J. Barré, 2017. "Risk aversion in crop insurance program purchase decisions," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 9(1), pages 62-80, February.
    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. J. François Outreville, 2015. "The Relationship Between Relative Risk Aversion And The Level Of Education: A Survey And Implications For The Demand For Life Insurance," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 97-111, February.
    2. Roger Hartley & Gauthier Lanot & Ian Walker, 2014. "Who Really Wants To Be A Millionaire? Estimates Of Risk Aversion From Gameshow Data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 861-879, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Karine Darjinoff & Francois Pannequin, 2000. "Demande d'assurance : Faut-il abandonner le critère de l'espérance d'utilité ?," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques bla00004, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    5. 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.
    6. Georgalos, Konstantinos & Paya, Ivan & Peel, David A., 2021. "On the contribution of the Markowitz model of utility to explain risky choice in experimental research," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 527-543.
    7. Holzmeister, Felix & Stefan, Matthias, 2019. "The Risk Elicitation Puzzle Revisited: Across-Methods (In)consistency?," OSF Preprints pj9u2, Center for Open Science.
    8. Jonathan Chapman & Erik Snowberg & Stephanie W. Wang & Colin Camerer, 2022. "Looming Large or Seeming Small? Attitudes Towards Losses in a Representative Sample," NBER Working Papers 30243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Adam Eric Greenberg, 2013. "When imagining future wealth influences risky decision making," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(3), pages 268-277, May.
    10. Arslan, Ruben C. & Brümmer, Martin & Dohmen, Thomas & Drewelies, Johanna & Hertwig, Ralph & Wagner, Gert G., 2020. "How people know their risk preference," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10.
    11. Ephraim Clark & Zhuo Qiao & Wing-Keung Wong, 2016. "Theories Of Risk: Testing Investor Behavior On The Taiwan Stock And Stock Index Futures Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 907-924, April.
    12. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán González, 2023. "On The Appeal Of Complexity," Working Papers 2312, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE Lyon St-Etienne), Université de Lyon.
    13. Qi, Tianxiao & Xu, Bin & Wu, Jinshan & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2022. "On the Stochasticity of Ultimatum Games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 227-254.
    14. Moshe Levy, 2025. "Relative risk aversion must be close to 1," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 346(1), pages 127-135, March.
    15. Insaf Bekir & Faten Doss, 2020. "Status quo bias and attitude towards risk: An experimental investigation," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(5), pages 827-838, July.
    16. Stefanescu, Razvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2015. "Alegerea soluţiilor pentru expunerile faţă de risc [Choosing solutions to risk exposures]," MPRA Paper 65074, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Andrea Hackethal & Michael Kirchler & Christine Laudenbach & Michael Razen & Annika Weber, 2020. "On the role of monetary incentives in risk preference elicitation experiments," Working Papers 2020-29, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    18. E. Elisabet Rutstrom & Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau, 2004. "Estimating Risk Attitudes in Denmark," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 201, Econometric Society.
    19. Antoni Bosch-Domènech & Joaquim Silvestre, 2003. "Do the eealthy risk more money? An experimental comparison," Economics Working Papers 692, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2005.
    20. Gee, C., 2007. "Risky Choice and Type-Uncertainty in "Deal or No Deal?"," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0758, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jjrfmx:v:18:y:2025:i:3:p:121-:d:1599482. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.