RISK AVERSION RELATES TO COGNITIVE ABILITY: PREFERENCES OR NOISE?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Andersson, Ola; Holm, Hakan J.; Tyran, Jean-Robert; Wengstrom, Erik
• 署名单位: Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN); Lund University; University of Copenhagen; University of Vienna
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12179
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1129-1154
• 关键词: probability; attitudes; impatience; utility; CHOICE

摘要

Recent experimental studies suggest that risk aversion is negatively related to cognitive ability. In this paper we report evidence that this relation may be spurious. We recruit a large subject pool drawn from the general Danish population for our experiment. By presenting subjects with choice tasks that vary the bias induced by random choices, we are able to generate both negative and positive correlations between risk aversion and cognitive ability. Our results suggest that cognitive ability is related to random decision making rather than to risk preferences.