Members of German Federal Parliament More Risk-Loving than General Population

Moritz Heß, Christian von Scheve, Jürgen Schupp and Gert Wagner

No 546, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: The article analyzes the question of whether career politicians differ systematically from the general population in terms of their attitudes toward risk. A written survey of members of the 17th German Bundestag in late 2011 identified their risk attitudes, and the survey data was set in relation to respondents to the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for the survey year 2009 (2002 through 2012). Compared with the population surveyed in the SOEP, members of the German parliament display a considerably higher general risk appe-tite, which is highly significant. For different areas of risk, last surveyed in the SOEP in 2009, the members of parliament had significantly stronger risk-loving attitudes across vir-tually all indicators and risk categories surveyed than the comparison groups of SOEP re-spondents.

Keywords: political decision-making; risk aversion; German parliament; SOEP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D78 H11 H70 P16 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12 p.
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-eur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Members of German Federal Parliament More Risk-Loving Than General Population (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp546

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