Yun Wang a, Mingyang Yan b
Author information
a School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
b The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
E-mail: yunwang0606@ruc.edu.cn (Yun Wang)
Individuals’ risk attitudes play an important role in economic decision making and policy evaluation, particularly in the midst of unprecedented uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We adopt a multiple-price-list elicitation method with real money incentives to measure precisely individuals’ risk attitudes at different stake levels and the extent to which they are affected by personal and social shocks following the COVID-19 outbreak in China. We find that subjects who had previously experienced negative personal shocks are more risk-averse at medium and large stakes but more risk loving at very small stakes. For our sample, COVID-19 has no significant impact on risk attitudes, as it is more likely to be regarded as a social shock. The result indicates that the impact of COVID-19 on individual risk attitudes is not as influential as expected, unless the individual’s personal life is affected directly.
risk attitude, risk instability, behavioral economics, negative shock, COVID-19 pandemic
Yun Wang, Mingyang Yan. Past Experiences, Personality Traits, and Risk Aversion: Evidence from Individual Risk Attitudes during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Front. Econ. China, 2020, 15(4): 575‒625 https://doi.org/10.3868/s060-011-020-0024-4