This paper studies the impact of incentives on worker self-selection in a controlled laboratory experiment. Subjects face the choice between a fixed and a variable payment scheme. Depending on the treatment, the variable payment is a piece rate, a tournament or a revenue-sharing scheme. We find...

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 explore gender differences in preferences for competition and risk among children aged 9-12 in Colombia and Sweden, two countries differing in gender equality according to macro indices. We include four types of tasks that vary in gender stereotyping when looking at competitiveness: running,...

We look at gender differences in preferences for altruism, risk and competition in math and word search among adolescents in Sweden. We find that girls are more altruistic and less risk taking than boys. We find no gender gap in performance change when comparing performance under non-competition...

Single-sex classes within coeducational environments are likely to modify students' risk-taking attitudes in economically important ways. To test this, we designed a controlled experiment using first year college students who made choices over real-stakes lotteries at two distinct dates....

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....

In this paper we utilise data from a unique new birth-cohort study to see how the risk preferences of young people are affected by cognitive skills and gender. We find that cognitive ability (measured by the percentile ranking for university entrance at age 18) has no effect on risk preferences...

We summarize our two sets of controlled experiments designed to see whether single-sex classes within co-educational environments modify students' risk-taking attitudes. In Booth and Nolen (2012b), subjects are in school years 10 and 11, while in Booth et al. (2014), they are first-year...

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...

In a within-subjects experiment we test the relation of risk preferences and charitable giving. Women not only give substantially more than men, but also show an economically significant positive correlation between risk tolerance and donation levels. We find no such correlation for men. Men and...