This paper presents new evidence on the distribution of risk attitudes in the population, using a novel set of survey questions and a representative sample of roughly 22,000 individuals living in Germany. Using a question that asks about willingness to take risks on an 11-point scale, we find...

We study how website defaults affect consumer behavior in the domain of charitable giving. In a field experiment that was conducted on a large platform for making charitable donations over the web, we exogenously vary the default options in two distinct choice dimensions. The first pertains to...

There are few studies on occupational choices in Germany, and the second generation occupational choice and mobility is even less investigated. Such research is important because occupations determine success in the labor market. In a country like Germany occupations also reflect a general...

In a series of experimental games, each of two players may choose between remuneration based on either private or team effort. Although at least one of the players has the subgame perfect equilibrium strategy to choose remuneration based on private effort, we frequently observe team remuneration...

This study investigates the role of gender in financial risk-taking. Specifically, I ask whether female investors tend to fund less risky investment projects than males. To answer this question, I use real-life investment data collected at the largest German market for peer-to-peer lending....

This paper investigates whether self-employed households use consumer loans - in particular instalment loans and overdrafts - to finance business activities. Controlling for financial and non-financial household variables we show that self-employed households particularly use personal overdrafts...

This paper explores the relationship between risk attitude and asset diversification in household portfolios. We first examine the impact of manifested risk aversion on the total number of distinct assets held in a portfolio (naive diversification). The second part of the paper focuses on a more...

This paper uses the newly constructed Luxembourg Wealth Study data to document cross-country variation in homeownership rates and the homeownership-income inequality among young households in Finland, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, and relate it to cross-country differences in mortgage...

This paper explores the relationship between self-declared risk aversion of private investors and their willingness to hold diversified portfolios of financial assets. The analysis is based on household survey data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) that provides a reliable measure of...

We use household survey data from Hungary to analyse the determinants of foreign currency (FX) borrowing. We do not find evidence that Hungarian FX borrowers are better educated, wealthier or more risk-loving than their peers. In fact, FX borrowing is a common phenomenon driven mostly by...