IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwsop/diw_sp1000.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Do Households Allocate Risk?

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph Engel
  • Alexandra Fedorets
  • Olga Gorelkina

Abstract

Individuals often have to decide to which degree of risk they want to expose others, or how much risk to accept if their choice has an externality on third parties. One typical application is a household. We run an experiment in the German Socio-Economic Panel with two members from 494 households. Participants have a good estimate of each other’s risk preferences, even if not explicitly informed. They do not simply match this preference when deciding on behalf of the other household member, but shy away from exposing others to risk. We model the situation, and we find four distinct types of individuals, and two distinct types of households.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Engel & Alexandra Fedorets & Olga Gorelkina, 2018. "How Do Households Allocate Risk?," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1000, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1000
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.611690.de/diw_sp1000.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Necker, Sarah & Ziegelmeyer, Michael, 2016. "Household risk taking after the financial crisis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 141-160.
    3. Eriksen, Kristoffer W. & Kvaløy, Ola & Luzuriaga, Miguel, 2020. "Risk-taking on behalf of others," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    4. Elena Cettolin & Arno Riedl & Giang Tran, 2017. "Giving in the face of risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 95-118, December.
    5. Engel, Christoph, 2010. "The behaviour of corporate actors: How much can we learn from the experimental literature?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 445-475, December.
    6. Philomena Bacon & Anna Conte & Peter Moffatt, 2014. "Assortative mating on risk attitude," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 77(3), pages 389-401, October.
    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. Engel, Christoph & Goerg, Sebastian J., 2018. "If the worst comes to the worst: Dictator giving when recipient’s endowments are risky," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 51-70.
    9. J. Michelle Brock & Andreas Lange & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2013. "Dictating the Risk: Experimental Evidence on Giving in Risky Environments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 415-437, February.
    10. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 436-444, June.
    11. Nancy Jianakoplos & Alexandra Bernasek, 2008. "Family Financial Risk Taking When the Wife Earns More," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 289-306, June.
    12. Christina M. Fong, 2007. "Evidence from an Experiment on Charity to Welfare Recipients: Reciprocity, Altruism and the Empathic Responsiveness Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 1008-1024, July.
    13. 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.
    14. Gert G. Wagner & Joachim R. Frick & Jürgen Schupp, 2007. "The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Scope, Evolution and Enhancements," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 139-169.
    15. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 436-444.
    16. Sarah Brown & Andrew Dickerson & Jolian McHardy & Karl Taylor, 2012. "Gambling and credit: an individual and household level analysis for the UK," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(35), pages 4639-4650, December.
    17. Donkers, Bas & van Soest, Arthur, 1999. "Subjective measures of household preferences and financial decisions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 613-642, December.
    18. Gary Charness & Edi Karni & Dan Levin, 2007. "Individual and group decision making under risk: An experimental study of Bayesian updating and violations of first-order stochastic dominance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 129-148, October.
    19. Füllbrunn, Sascha C. & Luhan, Wolfgang J., 2017. "Decision making for others: The case of loss aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 154-156.
    20. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Ning Liu & Peter P. Wakker, 2016. "Group decision rules and group rationality under risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 99-116, April.
    21. Ferdinand M. Vieider & Clara Villegas-Palacio & Peter Martinsson & Milagros Mejía, 2016. "Risk Taking For Oneself And Others: A Structural Model Approach," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 879-894, April.
    22. Ambrus, Attila & Greiner, Ben & Pathak, Parag A., 2015. "How individual preferences are aggregated in groups: An experimental study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1-13.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Urs Fischbacher & Levent Neyse & David Richter & Carsten Schröder, 2024. "Adding household surveys to the behavioral economics toolbox: insights from the SOEP innovation sample," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(1), pages 136-151, June.
    3. Schröder Carsten & König Johannes & Fedorets Alexandra & Goebel Jan & Grabka Markus M. & Lüthen Holger & Metzing Maria & Schikora Felicitas & Liebig Stefan, 2020. "The economic research potentials of the German Socio-Economic Panel study," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 21(3), pages 335-371, September.

    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. Christoph Engel & Alexandra Fedorets & Olga Gorelkina, 2018. "How Do Households Allocate Risk?," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1000, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Engel, Christoph & Goerg, Sebastian J., 2018. "If the worst comes to the worst: Dictator giving when recipient’s endowments are risky," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 51-70.
    3. Jones, Luke & Cseh, Attila, 2021. "Earning responsibility increases risk taking among representative decision makers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 317-329.
    4. Eriksen, Kristoffer W. & Kvaløy, Ola & Luzuriaga, Miguel, 2020. "Risk-taking on behalf of others," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    5. Kirchler, Michael & Lindner, Florian & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Delegated investment decisions and rankings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    6. Mickael Beaud & Mathieu Lefebvre & Julie Rosaz, 2023. "Other-regarding preferences and giving decision in a risky environment: experimental evidence," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(2), pages 359-385, June.
    7. Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Utz Weitzel, 2018. "Delegated Decision Making and Social Competition in the Finance Industry," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2018_08, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    8. Felix Holzmeister & Martin Holmén & Michael Kirchler & Matthias Stefan & Erik Wengström, 2023. "Delegation Decisions in Finance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(8), pages 4828-4844, August.
    9. Barrafrem, Kinga & Hausfeld, Jan, 2020. "Tracing risky decisions for oneself and others: The role of intuition and deliberation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    10. Polman, Evan & Wu, Kaiyang, 2020. "Decision making for others involving risk: A review and meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Mickael Beaud & Mathieu Lefebvre & Julie Rosaz, 2018. "Other-Regarding Preferences and Giving Decision in Risky Environments: Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 1815, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    12. Waichman, Israel & Blanckenburg, Korbinian von, 2020. "Is there no “I” in “Team”? Interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect in a Cournot competition experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Fornasari, Federico & Ploner, Matteo & Soraperra, Ivan, 2020. "Interpersonal risk assessment and social preferences: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    14. Angela C. M. Oliveira, 2021. "When risky decisions generate externalities," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 59-79, August.
    15. Holzmeister, Felix & Holmén, Martin & Kirchler, Michael & Stefan, Matthias & Wengström, Erik, 2019. "Delegated Decision-Making in Finance," OSF Preprints 3umdf, Center for Open Science.
    16. Füllbrunn, Sascha & Luhan, Wolfgang J., 2020. "Responsibility and limited liability in decision making for others – An experimental consideration," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Billur Aksoy & Silvana Krasteva, 2020. "When does less information translate into more giving to public goods?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(4), pages 1148-1177, December.
    18. Embrey, Matthew & Hyndman, Kyle & Riedl, Arno, 2021. "Bargaining with a residual claimant: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 335-354.
    19. Füllbrunn, Sascha & Luhan, Wolfgang J., 2015. "Am I my Peer's Keeper? Social Responsibility in Financial Decision Making," Ruhr Economic Papers 551, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    20. Sean Fahle & Santiago I. Sautua, 2021. "How do risk attitudes affect pro-social behavior? Theory and experiment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 101-122, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    risk preference; household; reticence to expose others to risk; trade-off between individual and foreign risk preference;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C45 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Neural Networks and Related Topics
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1000. 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sodiwde.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.