The Global Variation in Risk and Time Preferences

Anke Becker, Christina Borner, Thomas Dohmen, Armin Falk, David Huffman and Uwe Sunde
Additional contact information
Anke Becker: Harvard Business School
Christina Borner: LMU Munich
Thomas Dohmen: University of Bonn
Armin Falk: University of Bonn
David Huffman: Cornell University
Uwe Sunde: LMU Munich

No 568, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: A growing body of empirical research has developed measures of economic preferences related to risk taking and intertemporal choice. This research has documented pronounced heterogeneity in preferences across and within societies, and also provided evidence that these differences are culturally transmitted. This chapter discusses existing data sets that allow for a comparable measurement across the globe, takes stock of commonalities and differences in approaches, and presents an extended synthetic cross-country data set that combines information from existing data sets. The analysis then establishes various empirical regularities, such as broadly similar patterns of heterogeneity across the globe, revealed by the different datasets, but also some systematic divergences by measurement approach, and substantial correlations of economic preferences with country-aggregate and individual-level outcomes and traits. We also briefly discuss international data sets measuring social preferences, and end with an outlook on avenues for future research.

Keywords: willingness to take risks; patience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03-31
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/ ... ussion_paper/568.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:rco:dpaper:568

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Viviana Lalli ().