Salience, Risky Choices and Gender

Alison Booth and Patrick Nolen

No 6400, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Risk theories typically assume individuals make risky choices using probability weights that differ from objective probabilities. Recent theories suggest that probability weights vary depending on which portion of a risky environment is made salient. Using experimental data we show that salience affects young men and women differently, even after controlling for cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Men are significantly more likely than women to switch from a certain to a risky choice once the upside of winning is made salient, even though the expected value of the choice remains the same.

Keywords: cognitive ability; salience; risk-aversion; gender; probability weights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D8 D81 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11 pages
Date: 2012-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published - published in: Economics Letters, 2012, 117 (2), 517 - 520

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6400.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Salience, risky choices and gender (2012)
Working Paper: Salience, Risky Choices and Gender (2012)
Working Paper: Salience, Risky Choices and Gender (2012)
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:dp6400

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 ().