Risk taking in diverse groups: Gender matters

Using an experiment with incentivized decisions of groups in the economics laboratory, I investigate the effect of group diversity on group risk taking. I measure econometrically the effects of various aspects of subjects' diversity: nationality, language, university degree and gender. I find that group decisions, when taken during face-to-face discussions between group members, replicate the pattern of previous studies with the same experimental task in that they lead to significantly higher risk taking by groups as compared to individuals. Furthermore, the only dimension of diversity with an effect on risk taking is gender: risk taking is increasing in the number of male group members.