Is Financial Risk-Taking Behavior Genetically Transmitted?

Arbeitspapier

In this paper, we use a sample of almost 30,000 Swedish mono- and dizygotic twins to study the heritability of financial risk-taking. Following a major pension reform in the year 2000, virtually all Swedish adults had to simultaneously make a financial decision affecting post-retirement wealth. We take this event as a field experiment to infer risk preferences. We use standard techniques from behavior genetics to partition variation in risk-taking into environmental and genetic components. Our findings suggest that genetic variation is an important source of individual heterogeneity in financial risk-taking.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IFN Working Paper ; No. 765

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles ; Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
• Subject: Genetics ; Risk-Taking ; Portfolio Investment ; Twins ; Biologie ; Risikopräferenz ; Kapitalanlage ; Anlageverhalten ; Altersvorsorge ; Schweden

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Cesarini, David ; Johannesson, Magnus ; Lichtenstein, Paul ; Sandewall, Örjan ; Wallace, Björn
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• (where): Stockholm
• (when): 2008

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/81353
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET