Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers
Creation-Date: 2010-03-03
Number: 10-027/3
Author-Name: Xiaohao Ding
Author-Workplace-Name: Peking University
Author-Name: Joop Hartog
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Amsterdam
Author-Name: Yuze Sun
Author-Workplace-Name: Peking University
Title: Can we measure Individual Risk Attitudes in a Survey?
Abstract: We combine a survey and an experiment with real pay-out among Peking University students to measure and validate individual risk attitudes. The experiment involves choosing between a cash payment and playing a lottery. The survey questions ask for the reservation price of a hypothetical lottery and self-assessment of risk attitude on a 0-10 scale. We confirm familiar findings: risk aversion dominates, women are more risk averse than men, risk aversion decreases with increasing parental income, risk attitudes are domain-specific. Correlations between survey measures and experimental measures, are in the right direction, but not very high. The survey measures are valid indicators of experimentally measured risk attitude, but with substantial noise remaining. Heterogeneity in levels and structure of risk attitude is large.
Classification-JEL: D12
Keywords: risk attitude; survey question; experimental validation
File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/10027.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 397185 bytes
Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20100027