It is increasingly recognized that decision making under uncertainty does not depend only on probabilities, but also on psychological factors. People display ambiguity aversion in preferring to bet on events with known probabilities rather than those for which probabilities are not known. People...

We study the role of risk aversion underlying son preference in patriarchal societies, where sons serve as better insurance for old-age support than daughters. The implications of an insurance motive on son preference are two-fold. First, prior to the birth of their children, more risk-averse...