Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion

Lex Borghans, Bart Golsteyn (), James J. Heckman () and Huub Meijers
Additional contact information
James J. Heckman: University of Chicago

No 3985, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D80 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2009-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-ent and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (382)

Published - published in: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2009, 7(2-3), 649-658

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3985.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion (2009)
Working Paper: Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion (2009)
Working Paper: Gender differences in risk aversion and ambiguity aversion (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3985

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().