Risk Aversion, Wealth and Background Risk

Monica Paiella and Luigi Guiso ()

No 525, 2004 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: We use household survey data to construct a direct measure of absolute risk aversion based on the maximum price a consumer is willing to pay to buy a risky security. We relate this measure to consumers' endowment and attributes and to measures of background risk and liquidity constraints. We find that risk aversion is a decreasing function of endowment - thus rejecting CARA preferences - but the elasticity to consumption is far below the unitary value predicted by CRRA utility. We also find that households' attributes are of little help in predicting their degree of risk aversion, which is characterized by massive unexplained heterogeneity. However, the consumers' environment affects risk aversion. Individuals who are more likely to face income uncertainty or to become liquidity constrained exhibit a higher degree of absolute risk aversion, consistent with recent theories of attitudes towards risk in the presence of uninsurable risks.

Keywords: Risk aversion; heterogeneous preferences; household characteristics; background risk. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 D8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fin
Date: 2004
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Related works:
Working Paper: Risk Aversion, Wealth, and Background Risk (2007)
Working Paper: Risk Aversion, Wealth and Background Risk (2001)
Working Paper: Risk Aversion, Wealth and Background Risk (2003)
Journal Article: Risk Aversion, Wealth, and Background Risk (2008)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:red:sed004:525

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