Individual’s Risk Attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa: Determinants and Reliability of Self-reported Risk in Burkina Faso

Mohammad Sepahvand (mohammad.sepahvand@nek.lu.se) and Roujman Shahbazian (roujman.shahbazian@nek.uu.se)
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Roujman Shahbazian: Individual’s Risk Attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa: Determinants and Reliability of Self-reported Risk in Burkina Faso

No 2017:11, Working Paper Series from Uppsala University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Risk taking is an important topic in Africa, as access to financial institutions and social security is scarce. Data on risk attitudes in Africa is limited and the available data collected might not be reliable. We investigate the determinants of risk attitudes and the reliability of survey data in a sub-Saharan country, like Burkina Faso. Using a large representative panel survey of 31 677 individuals, we analyze the determinants and the test-retest reliability for different risk attitudes in general, traffic and financial matters. Our results show that determinants such as individual’s sex and age are significantly associated with willingness to take risk. Women have more reliable risk measures compared to men, older individuals have more reliable risk measures than younger individuals and those with high education exhibit a higher reliability in terms of their self-reported risk attitude compared to people with low education. Reliability differs across risk attitudes; risk-taking in traffic has the highest

Keywords: risk attitudes; determinants of risk-taking; test-retest reliability; Burkina Faso (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 J10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2017-11-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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