Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Borghans Lex 
Author-Name: Golsteyn Bart 
Author-Name: Heckman James 
Author-Name: Meijers Huub 
Author-workplace-name: ROA rm
Title: Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion
Abstract: This paper demonstrates gender differences in risk aversion and ambiguityaversion. It also contributes to a growing literature relating economic preferenceparameters to psychological measures by asking whether variations in preferenceparameters among persons, and in particular across genders, can be accounted forby differences in personality traits and traits of cognition. Women are more riskaverse than men. Over an initial range, women require no further compensationfor the introduction of ambiguity but men do. At greater levels of ambiguity,women have the same marginal distaste for increased ambiguity as men.Psychological variables account for some of the interpersonal variation in riskaversion. They explain none of the differences in ambiguity.
Keywords: education, training and the labour market; 
Series: Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 2009
Number: 005
File-URL: http://edocs.ub.unimaas.nl/loader/file.asp?id=1407
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 98796
Handle: RePEc:unm:umaror:2009005