Experiments are being used to generate measures of characteristics of individuals that need to be controlled for economic analyses. Examples include the measurement of risk aversion, inequality aversion, and trust. Imprecision in measuring those characteristics may lead to misleading conclusions...

Holt and Laury, AER 2002, develop an experimental design to determine the risk aversion of an individual. They use their observations to argue that increased incentives appear to change risk attitudes, leading to greater risk aversion. However, their main treatment, the effects of scaling up the...

Estimates of risk aversion can be obtained from controlled laboratory experiments. The temporal stability of those preferences is assumed in many applications. This assumption is tested by eliciting risk aversion measures from subjects at two distinct times. Evidence consistent with the...