IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hka/wpaper/2016-003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Armin Falk

    (Universität Bonn)

  • Anke Becker

    (Bonn Graduate School of Economics)

  • Thomas Dohmen

    (Universität Bonn)

  • David Huffman

    (University of Pittsburgh)

  • Uwe Sunde

    (University of Munich)

Abstract

This paper presents an experimentally validated survey module to measure six key economic preferences { risk aversion, discounting, trust, altruism, positive and negative reciprocity in a reliable, parsimonious and cost-effective way. The survey instruments included in the module were the best predictors of preferences revealed in incentivized choice experiments. We also offer a streamlined version of the module that has been optimized and piloted for applications where time efficiency and simplicity are paramount, such as international telephone surveys.

Suggested Citation

  • Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2016. "The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences," Working Papers 2016-003, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
  • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2016-003
    Note: IP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Falk_Becker_etal_2016_preference-survey-module.pdf
    File Function: First version, January, 2016
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2005. "Driving Forces Behind Informal Sanctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 2017-2030, November.
    2. Barasinska, Nataliya & Schäfer, Dorothea & Stephan, Andreas, 2012. "Individual Risk Attitudes and the Composition of Financial Portfolios: Evidence from German Household Portfolios," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 52(1), pages 1-14.
    3. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2005. "Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 917-962.
    4. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    5. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    6. James Murphy & P. Allen & Thomas Stevens & Darryl Weatherhead, 2005. "A Meta-analysis of Hypothetical Bias in Stated Preference Valuation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 30(3), pages 313-325, March.
    7. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan & Suedekum, Jens & Lameli, Alfred, 2014. "Why are educated and risk-loving persons more mobile across regions?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 56-69.
    8. Vischer, Thomas & Dohmen, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Huffman, David & Schupp, Jürgen & Sunde, Uwe & Wagner, Gert G., 2013. "Validating an ultra-short survey measure of patience," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 142-145.
    9. 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.
    10. Anke Becker & Thomas Deckers & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2012. "The Relationship Between Economic Preferences and Psychological Personality Measures," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 453-478, July.
    11. Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus & Mollerstrom, Johanna & Munkhammar, Sara, 2012. "Social framing effects: Preferences or beliefs?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 117-130.
    12. Falk, A. & Becker, A. & Dohmen, T.J. & Enke, B. & Huffman, D. & Sunde, U., 2015. "The nature and predictive power of preferences: Global evidence," Research Memorandum 039, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    13. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher & Bernhard von Rosenbladt & J�rgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, "undated". "A Nation-Wide Laboratory: Examining trust and trustworthiness by integrating behavioral experiments into representative surveys," IEW - Working Papers 141, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    14. Franziska Ziegelmeyer & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2016. "Parenting is risky business: parental risk attitudes in small stakes decisions on behalf of their children," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 599-623, September.
    15. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2009. "Homo Reciprocans: Survey Evidence on Behavioural Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 592-612, March.
    16. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    17. 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.
    18. Xiaohao Ding & Joop Hartog & Yuze Sun, 2010. "Can we measure Individual Risk Attitudes in a Survey?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 10-027/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    19. Alain Cohn & Jan Engelmann & Ernst Fehr & Michel André Maréchal, 2015. "Evidence for Countercyclical Risk Aversion: An Experiment with Financial Professionals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 860-885, February.
    20. Fouarge, Didier & Kriechel, Ben & Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Occupational sorting of school graduates: The role of economic preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 335-351.
    21. Bonin, Holger & Dohmen, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Huffman, David & Sunde, Uwe, 2007. "Cross-sectional earnings risk and occupational sorting: The role of risk attitudes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 926-937, December.
    22. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    23. Susan Rose-Ackerman, 1996. "Altruism, Nonprofits, and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 701-728, June.
    24. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & Melonie B. Williams, 2002. "Estimating Individual Discount Rates in Denmark: A Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1606-1617, December.
    25. Quang Nguyen & Colin Camerer & Tomomi Tanaka, 2010. "Risk and Time Preferences Linking Experimental and Household Data from Vietnam," Post-Print halshs-00547090, HAL.
    26. David A. Jaeger & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Holger Bonin, 2010. "Direct Evidence on Risk Attitudes and Migration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 684-689, August.
    27. Levon Barseghyan & Jeffrey Prince & Joshua C. Teitelbaum, 2011. "Are Risk Preferences Stable across Contexts? Evidence from Insurance Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 591-631, April.
    28. Bernd Hardeweg & Lukas Menkhoff & Hermann Waibel, 2013. "Experimentally Validated Survey Evidence on Individual Risk Attitudes in Rural Thailand," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(4), pages 859-888.
    29. Marco Caliendo & Frank Fossen & Alexander Kritikos, 2009. "Risk attitudes of nascent entrepreneurs–new evidence from an experimentally validated survey," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 153-167, February.
    30. Olivier Toubia & Eric Johnson & Theodoros Evgeniou & Philippe Delquié, 2013. "Dynamic Experiments for Estimating Preferences: An Adaptive Method of Eliciting Time and Risk Parameters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(3), pages 613-640, June.
    31. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. James Andreoni & Charles Sprenger, 2012. "Estimating Time Preferences from Convex Budgets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3333-3356, December.
    33. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    34. Jonathan Chapman & Erik Snowberg & Stephanie Wang & Colin Camerer, 2018. "Loss Attitudes in the U.S. Population: Evidence from Dynamically Optimized Sequential Experimentation (DOSE)," CESifo Working Paper Series 7262, CESifo.
    35. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    36. Harrison, Glenn W. & Rutström, E. Elisabet, 2008. "Experimental Evidence on the Existence of Hypothetical Bias in Value Elicitation Methods," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 81, pages 752-767, Elsevier.
    37. Sjoerd Beugelsdijk & Henri L.F. de Groot & Anton B.T.M. van Schaik, 2004. "Trust and economic growth: a robustness analysis," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(1), pages 118-134, January.
    38. Montizaan, Raymond M. & Vendrik, Maarten C.M., 2014. "Misery Loves Company: Exogenous shocks in retirement expectations and social comparison effects on subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-26.
    39. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    40. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Iuliana Pascu & Mark R. Cullen, 2012. "How General Are Risk Preferences? Choices under Uncertainty in Different Domains," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2606-2638, October.
    41. Ben Gillen & Erik Snowberg & Leeat Yariv, 2019. "Experimenting with Measurement Error: Techniques with Applications to the Caltech Cohort Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1826-1863.
    42. Kadane, Joseph B. & Lazar, Nicole A., 2004. "Methods and Criteria for Model Selection," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 99, pages 279-290, January.
    43. Tomomi Tanaka & Colin F. Camerer & Quang Nguyen, 2010. "Risk and Time Preferences: Linking Experimental and Household Survey Data from Vietnam," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 557-571, March.
    44. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    45. Smith, Patricia K. & Bogin, Barry & Bishai, David, 2005. "Are time preference and body mass index associated?: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 259-270, July.
    46. Ding, Xiaohao & Hartog, Joop & Sun, Yuze, 2010. "Can We Measure Individual Risk Attitudes in a Survey?," IZA Discussion Papers 4807, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    47. John List & Craig Gallet, 2001. "What Experimental Protocol Influence Disparities Between Actual and Hypothetical Stated Values?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 20(3), pages 241-254, November.
    48. Armin Falk & Florian Zimmermann, 2018. "Information Processing and Commitment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(613), pages 1983-2002, August.
    49. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    50. Ferdinand M. Vieider & Mathieu Lefebvre & Ranoua Bouchouicha & Thorsten Chmura & Rustamdjan Hakimov & Michal Krawczyk & Peter Martinsson, 2015. "Common Components Of Risk And Uncertainty Attitudes Across Contexts And Domains: Evidence From 30 Countries," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 421-452, June.
    51. Michael Kosfeld & Armin Falk, 2006. "The Hidden Costs of Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1611-1630, December.
    52. Amos Tversky & Itamar Simonson, 1993. "Context-Dependent Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1179-1189, October.
    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. Bauer, Michal & Chytilová, Julie & Miguel, Edward, 2020. "Using survey questions to measure preferences: Lessons from an experimental validation in Kenya," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    2. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    3. 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.
    4. Sepahvand, Mohammad & Shahbazian, Roujman, 2017. "Individual’s Risk Attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa: Determinants and Reliability of Self-reported Risk in Burkina Faso," Working Paper Series 2017:11, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    5. Dohmen, Thomas & Quercia, Simone & Willrodt, Jana, 2018. "Willingness to Take Risk: The Role of Risk Conception and Optimism," IZA Discussion Papers 11642, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. 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.
    7. Thomas Dohmen & Simone Quercia & Jana Willrodt, 2023. "On the psychology of the relation between optimism and risk taking," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 193-214, October.
    8. Dohmen, Thomas & Lehmann, Hartmut & Pignatti, Norberto, 2016. "Time-varying individual risk attitudes over the Great Recession: A comparison of Germany and Ukraine," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 182-200.
    9. Carole Treibich, 2015. "Are Survey Risk Aversion Measurements Adequate in a Low Income Context?," AMSE Working Papers 1517, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    10. Thomas Meissner & Xavier Gassmann & Corinne Faure & Joachim Schleich, 2023. "Individual characteristics associated with risk and time preferences: A multi country representative survey," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 66(1), pages 77-107, February.
    11. Bernd Hardeweg & Lukas Menkhoff & Hermann Waibel, 2013. "Experimentally Validated Survey Evidence on Individual Risk Attitudes in Rural Thailand," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(4), pages 859-888.
    12. 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.
    13. Giuseppe Albanese & Guido de Blasio & Paolo Sestito, 2017. "Trust, risk and time preferences: evidence from survey data," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(4), pages 367-388, December.
    14. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    15. Jansen, Anika & Pfeifer, Harald & Raecke, Julia, 2017. "Only the brave? Risk and time preferences of decision makers and firms’ investment in worker training," Research Memorandum 004, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    16. Lönnqvist, Jan-Erik & Verkasalo, Markku & Walkowitz, Gari & Wichardt, Philipp C., 2015. "Measuring individual risk attitudes in the lab: Task or ask? An empirical comparison," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 254-266.
    17. Joshua Tasoff & Wenjie Zhang, 2022. "The Performance of Time-Preference and Risk-Preference Measures in Surveys," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1149-1173, February.
    18. Kureishi, Wataru & Paule-Paludkiewicz, Hannah & Tsujiyama, Hitoshi & Wakabayashi, Midori, 2021. "Time preferences over the life cycle and household saving puzzles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 123-139.
    19. Kocher, Martin G. & Martinsson, Peter & Matzat, Dominik & Wollbrant, Conny, 2015. "The role of beliefs, trust, and risk in contributions to a public good," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 236-244.
    20. Galizzi, Matteo M. & Miraldo, Marisa & Stavropoulou, Charitini & van der Pol, Marjon, 2016. "Doctor–patient differences in risk and time preferences: A field experiment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 171-182.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    survey validation; experiment; preference measurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • C83 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General

    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:hka:wpaper:2016-003. 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: Jennifer Pachon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfichus.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.