IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijidsc/v15y2023i3p221-242.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Eliciting individual risk attitudes - different procedures, different findings

Author

Listed:
  • Sven Grüner
  • Norbert Hirschauer
  • Felix Krüger

Abstract

We compare three procedures for eliciting individual risk attitudes: Holt and Laury (2002), Eckel and Grossman (2002) and the general willingness-to-take-risks question of the German socio-economic panel. Using a within-subject design, we carry out a classroom experiment with students who are enrolled in the degree programs Physics, Computer Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Law, and History. We find that the risk attitudes as measured by the three procedures diverge substantially. This poses a serious challenge to the validity of these measurement instruments.

Suggested Citation

  • Sven Grüner & Norbert Hirschauer & Felix Krüger, 2023. "Eliciting individual risk attitudes - different procedures, different findings," International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 15(3), pages 221-242.
  • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijidsc:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:221-242
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=132823
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2002. "Sex Differences and Statistical Stereotyping in Attitudes Toward Financial Risk," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-03, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    2. Hans P. Binswanger, 1980. "Attitudes Toward Risk: Experimental Measurement in Rural India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 62(3), pages 395-407.
    3. John D. Hey & Chris Orme, 2018. "Investigating Generalizations Of Expected Utility Theory Using Experimental Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Experiments in Economics Decision Making and Markets, chapter 3, pages 63-98, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Kuhn, Michael A., 2012. "Experimental methods: Between-subject and within-subject design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 1-8.
    5. 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.
    6. Binswanger, Hans P, 1981. "Attitudes toward Risk: Theoretical Implications of an Experiment in Rural India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(364), pages 867-890, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Norbert Hirschauer & Oliver Musshoff & Syster C. Maart-Noelck & Sven Gruener, 2014. "Eliciting risk attitudes -- how to avoid mean and variance bias in Holt-and-Laury lotteries," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 35-38, January.
    9. John Hey & Jinkwon Lee, 2005. "Do Subjects Separate (or Are They Sophisticated)?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 8(3), pages 233-265, September.
    10. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2000. "Volunteers and Pseudo-Volunteers: The Effect of Recruitment Method in Dictator Experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 107-120, October.
    11. Dunning,Thad, 2012. "Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107017665, November.
    12. Alen Nosić & Martin Weber, 2010. "How Riskily Do I Invest? The Role of Risk Attitudes, Risk Perceptions, and Overconfidence," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(3), pages 282-301, September.
    13. Dunning,Thad, 2012. "Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107698000, November.
    14. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2008. "Forecasting Risk Attitudes: An Experimental Study Using Actual and Forecast Gamble Choices," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-01, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    15. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Imas, Alex, 2013. "Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 43-51.
    16. Chetan Dave & Catherine Eckel & Cathleen Johnson & Christian Rojas, 2010. "Eliciting risk preferences: When is simple better?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 219-243, December.
    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. Holzmeister, Felix & Stefan, Matthias, 2019. "The Risk Elicitation Puzzle Revisited: Across-Methods (In)consistency?," OSF Preprints pj9u2, Center for Open Science.
    2. Felix Holzmeister & Matthias Stefan, 2021. "The risk elicitation puzzle revisited: Across-methods (in)consistency?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 593-616, June.
    3. Felix Holzmeister & Matthias Stefan, 2019. "The risk elicitation puzzle revisited: Across-methods (in)consistency?," Working Papers 2019-19, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    4. Paolo Crosetto & Antonio Filippin, 2013. "A Theoretical and Experimental Appraisal of Five Risk Elicitation Methods," Jena Economics Research Papers 2013-009, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    5. Paolo Crosetto & Antonio Filippin, 2016. "A theoretical and experimental appraisal of four risk elicitation methods," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 613-641, September.
    6. Arianna Galliera & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2021. "Crowded out: Heterogeneity in risk attitudes among poor households in the US," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 103-132, October.
    7. 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.
    8. Ranganathan, Kavitha & Lejarraga, Tomás, 2021. "Elicitation of risk preferences through satisficing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    9. Caferra, Rocco & Morone, Andrea & Pierno, Donato, 2024. "From Measurements to Measures: Learning Risk Preferences under Different Risk Elicitation Methods," MPRA Paper 121590, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Eriksen, Kristoffer W. & Kvaløy, Ola & Luzuriaga, Miguel, 2020. "Risk-taking on behalf of others," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    13. Menkhoff, Lukas & Sakha, Sahra, 2017. "Estimating risky behavior with multiple-item risk measures," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 59-86.
    14. Crosetto, P. & Filippin, A., 2017. "Safe options induce gender differences in risk attitudes," Working Papers 2017-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    15. Paolo Crosetto & Antonio Filippin, 2023. "Safe options and gender differences in risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 66(1), pages 19-46, February.
    16. Shaoze Jin & Xiangping Jia & Harvey S. James, 2021. "Risk attitudes within farmer cooperative organizations: Evidence from China's fresh apple industry," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 173-205, June.
    17. Philip Grossman & Catherine Eckel, 2015. "Loving the long shot: Risk taking with skewed lotteries," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 195-217, December.
    18. Verschoor, Arjan & D’Exelle, Ben & Perez-Viana, Borja, 2016. "Lab and life: Does risky choice behaviour observed in experiments reflect that in the real world?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 134-148.
    19. Anwesha Bandyopadhyay & Lutfunnahar Begum & Philip J. Grossman, 2021. "Gender differences in the stability of risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 169-201, October.
    20. Bauermeister, Golo-Friedrich & Mußhoff, Oliver, 2016. "Risk Attitude And Inconsistencies - Does The Choice Of Display Format And Risk Elicitation Method Influence The Outcomes?," 56th Annual Conference, Bonn, Germany, September 28-30, 2016 244764, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).

    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:ids:ijidsc:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:221-242. 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: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=306 .

    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.