There is a large literature estimating Arrow-Pratt coefficients of absolute and relative risk aversion. A striking feature of this literature is the very wide variation in the reported estimates of the coefficients. While there are often legitimate reasons for these differences in the estimates,...

We investigate the relationship between subjective probabilities of future stock market returns and decisions about stockholding. Specifically, we examine whether acting upon subjective probabilities is confined to individuals with high cognitive skills. We explore this question using data from...

We study the joint impact of gender and marital status on financial decisions. First, we test the hypothesis that marriage represents - in a portfolio framework - a sort of safe asset, and that this effect is stronger for women. Controlling for a number of observable characteristics, we show...

We combine data from a risk preference elicitation experiment conducted on a representative sample via the Internet with laboratory data on students for the same experiment to investigate effects of implementation mode and of subject pool selection. We find that the frequency of errors in the...

Although economic agents routinely face various types of economic uncertainty, their effects are often unclear and hard to assess, in part due to the absence of suitable measures of uncertainty. Because of the numerous and very substantial institutional changes that people in the transition...

This paper presents the results of an experiment that completely measures the utility function and probability weighting function for different positive and negative monetary outcomes, using a representative sample of N = 1935 from the general public. The results confirm earlier findings in the...

We analyze dynamic interactions between market insurance, the stock of insurable assets and liquid wealth accumulation in a model with non-durable and durable consumption. The stock of the durable is exposed to risk against which households can insure. Since the model does not have a closed form...

Risk attitudes have an impact on not only the decision to become an entrepreneur but also the survival and failure rates of entrepreneurs. Whereas recent research underpins the theoretical proposition of a positive correlation between risk attitudes and the decision to become an entrepreneur,...

This study investigates how subjective mortality expectations and heterogeneity in time and risk preferences affect the consumption and saving behavior of the elderly. Previous studies find that the large wealth disparities observed among the elderly cannot be explained by differences in...

This study analyzes how risk attitudes change when individuals become parents using longitudinal data for a large and representative sample of individuals. The results show that men and women experience a considerable increase in risk aversion which already starts as early as two years before...