Willingness to take risk depends on whether the risk affects others as well as oneself and on how the risk affects oneś position vis-á-vis others. Taking a bet can improve oneś position relative to others or threaten it. We present an experiment that explores individual attitudes to lotteries...

The literature on social preferences provides overwhelming evidence of departures from pure self-interest of individuals. Experiments show that people care about others' well-being and their relative standing. This paper investigates whether this type of behavior persists when risk comes into...

This paper provides a comparative experimental study of risky prospects (lotteries) and income distributions. The experimental design consisted of multi-outcome lotteries and n-dimensional income distributions arranged in the shapes of ten distributions which were judged in terms of ratings and...

The literature on social preferences provides overwhelming evidence of departures from pure self-interest of individuals. Experiments show that people care about others' well-being and their relative standing. This paper investigates whether this type of behavior persists when risk comes into...

Previous studies have shown that decision makers are less other-regarding when their own payoff is risky than when it is sure. Empirical observations also indicate that people care more about identifiable than unidentiiable others. In this paper, we report on an experiment designed to explore...

This paper theoretically and experimentally studies decision-making in risky and social environments. We explore the interdependence of individual risk attitudes and social preferences in form of inequality aversion as two decisive behavioral determinants in such contexts. Our model and the data...

This paper theoretically and experimentally studies decision-making in risky and social environments. We explore the interdependence of individual risk attitudes and social preferences in the form of inequality aversion as two decisive behavioral determinants in such contexts. Our model and the...

Who is most likely to change their risk preferences over the lifecourse? Using German nationally representative survey data and methods to separate age from cohort effects, we estimate the lifecycle patterns in the socioeconomic gradient of self-reported risk preferences. Tolerance to risk drops...

Standard economic theory assumes that individual risk taking decisions are independent from the social context. Recent experimental evidence however shows that the income of peers has a systematic impact on observed degrees of risk aversion. In particular, subjects strive for balance in the...

In this study we experimentally investigate whether solidarity, which is a crucial base for informal insurance arrangements in developing countries, is sensitive to the extent to which in-dividuals can influence their risk exposure. With slum dwellers of Nairobi our design measures subjects'...