Arbeitspapier
Sharing or gambling? On risk attitudes in social contexts
This paper investigates experimentally whether risk attitudes are stable across social contexts. In particular, it focuses on situations where some resource (for instance, a position, decision power, a bonus) has to be allocated between two parties: the decision maker can either opt for sharing the resource or for using a random device that allocates the entire prize to one of the two parties. By varying the relative situation of the decision maker with respect to the other party, we show that risk attitude is strongly affected by social contexts: participants in the experiment seem to be relatively risk seeking when they possess a relatively weaker position than the other party and risk averse when the opposite is true. Our main average results seem to be driven by the behavior of around a quarter of subjects whose choices appear to be fully determined by social comparisons. Various interpretations of the behavior are provided linking our results to preferences under risk with a social reference point and on status-seeking preferences.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Munich Discussion Paper ; No. 2013-16
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Relation of Economics to Social Values
Miscellaneous Mathematical Tools
Noncooperative Games
Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- Subject
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risk attitudes
risk preferences in social context
social reference point
status-seeking preferences
social preferences under risk
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Kocher, Martin G.
Krawczyk, Michal
Le Lec, Fabrice
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät
- (where)
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München
- (when)
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2013
- DOI
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doi:10.5282/ubm/epub.17383
- Handle
- URN
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urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-17383-7
- Last update
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10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Kocher, Martin G.
- Krawczyk, Michal
- Le Lec, Fabrice
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät
Time of origin
- 2013