Working Paper: NBER ID: w14713
Authors: Lex Borghans; Bart HH Golsteyn; James J Heckman; Huub Meijers
Abstract: 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.
Keywords: Risk Aversion; Ambiguity Aversion; Gender Differences; Psychological Traits; Cognitive Traits
JEL Codes: J24; D80; D03
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| gender (J16) | risk aversion (D81) |
| gender (J16) | ambiguity aversion (D81) |
| psychological traits (D91) | risk aversion (D81) |
| psychological traits (D91) | ambiguity aversion (D81) |