Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions

James Andreoni, Amalia Di Girolamo, John List, Claire Mackevicius and Anya Samek

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 179, issue C, 729-742

Abstract: We conduct experiments eliciting risk preferences with over 1,400 children and adolescents aged 3–15 years old. We complement our data with an assessment of cognitive and executive function skills. First, we find that adolescent girls display significantly greater risk aversion than adolescent boys. This pattern is not observed among young children, suggesting that the gender gap in risk preferences emerges in early adolescence. Second, we find that at all ages in our study, cognitive skills (specifically math ability) are positively associated with risk taking. Executive functions among children, and soft skills among adolescents, are negatively associated with risk taking. Third, we find that greater risk-tolerance is associated with higher likelihood of disciplinary referrals, which provides evidence that our task is equipped to measure a relevant behavioral outcome. For academics, our research provides a deeper understanding of the developmental origins of risk preferences and highlights the important role of cognitive and executive function skills to better understand the association between risk preferences and cognitive abilities over the studied age range.

Keywords: Children; Field experiment; Risk preferences; Cognitive ability; Executive functions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Risk Preferences of Children and Adolescents in Relation to Gender, Cognitive Skills, Soft Skills, and Executive Functions (2019)
Working Paper: Risk Preferences of Children and Adolescents in Relation to Gender, Cognitive Skills, Soft Skills, and Executive Functions (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:179:y:2020:i:c:p:729-742

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.05.002

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