Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion / Lex Borghans, Bart H.H. Golsteyn, James J. Heckman, Huub Meijers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Borghans, Lex.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Golsteyn, Bart H.H.

Heckman, James J.

Meijers, Huub.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14713.

NBER working paper series no. w14713

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

This paper demonstrates gender differences in risk aversion and ambiguity aversion. It also contributes to a growing literature relating economic preference parameters to psychological measures by asking whether variations in preference parameters among persons, and in particular across genders, can be accounted for by differences in personality traits and traits of cognition. Women are more risk averse than men. Over an initial range, women require no further compensation for the introduction of ambiguity but men do. At greater levels of ambiguity, women have the same marginal distaste for increased ambiguity as men. Psychological variables account for some of the interpersonal variation in risk aversion. They explain none of the differences in ambiguity.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2009.