Some consumption opportunities are both indivisible and only valuable in particular tates of nature. The existence of such state-dependent indivisible consumption opportunities influences a person's risk attitudes. In general, people are not risk averse anymore even if utility from divisible...

Some consumption opportunities, e.g. medical treatments, are both indivisible and only valuable in particular states of nature. The existence of such state-dependent indivisible consumption opportunities influences a person's risk attitudes. In general, people are not risk averse anymore even if...

This paper investigates whether risk preferences explain how individuals are sorted into occupations with different earnings variability. We exploit data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which contains a subjective assessment of willingness to take risks whose behavioral relevance has been...

Using hypothetical lottery choices to measure risk preferences, Frederick (2005) finds that higher cognitive ability is associated with less risk aversion. This paper documents, however, that when using an incentive compatible measure of risk preference, attitudes towards risk are not associated...

We test for skewness preferences in a large set of observational panel data on online poker games (n=4,450,585). Each observation refers to a choice between a safe option and a binary risk of winning or losing the game. Our setting offers a real-world choice situation with substantial incentives...

Risk preferences are typically assumed to be constant for an individual across the life cycle. In this paper we empirically assess if they are time varying. Specifically, we analyse whether health shocks influence individual risk aversion. We follow an innovative approach and use grip strength...

We estimate the impact of Kenya's post-election crisis on individual risk preferences. The crisis interrupted a longitudinal survey of more than five thousand Kenyan youth, creating plausibly exogenous variation in exposure to civil conflict by the time of the survey. We measure individual risk...

We present a semiparametric method to estimate group-level dispersion, which is particularly effective in the presence of censored data. We apply this procedure to obtain measures of occupation-specific wage dispersion using top-coded administrative wage data from the German IAB Employment...

People differ in their willingness to take risks. Recent work found that revealed preference tasks (e.g., laboratory lotteries) - a dominant class of measures - are outperformed by survey-based stated preferences, which are more stable and predict real-world risk taking across different domains....

People differ in their willingness to take risks. Recent work found that revealed preference tasks (e.g., laboratory lotteries)—a dominant class of measures—are outperformed by survey-based stated preferences, which are more stable and predict real-world risk taking across different domains....