Risky Business – The Role of Individual Risk Attitudes in Occupational Choice

Ingo Isphording

No 187, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: This study analyzes the relationship of individual risk attitudes and occupational sorting with respect to occupational earnings risk. By using the German Mikrozensus, a precise measure for earnings risk is computed as the occupation-wide standard deviation of wages. Following the procedure proposed by Bonin (2007), this earnings risk measure is used as dependent variable in cross-sectional and panel data estimations using the SOEP data of 2004 and 2006, including a measure of the individual willingness to take risks. The significant relationship in cross-sectional analyses vanishes when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. Cross-sectional results seem to be driven by the correlation of unobserved ability and willingness to take risks, and are potentially biased by an attenuation bias due to unstable risk preferences. This study contributes to the existing literature by showing the importance of controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and instability of attitudes when examing the effects of personality traits in labor market decisions.

Keywords: Risk attitudes; occupational sorting; earnings risk; mundlak transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/37003/1/627393969.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:zbw:rwirep:187

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().