On the Social Dimension of Time and Risk Preferences: An Experimental Study

Güth, Werner; Levati, M. Vittoria; Ploner, Matteo

doi:10.1111/j.1465-7295.2007.00067.x

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On the Social Dimension of Time and Risk Preferences: An Experimental Study

Economic Inquiry, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 261-272, April 2008

12 Pages Posted: 18 Apr 2008

See all articles by Werner Güth

Werner Güth

Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods; Luiss Guido Carli University

M. Vittoria Levati

Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Strategic Interaction Group

When explaining risk taking, inter-temporal allocation, and distributing behavior, economists rely on risk, time, and other-regarding preferences but offer no guidance on how these three crucial aspects are interrelated. We report on an experiment exploring such interrelation. For this sake, we compare evaluations of several prospects, each of which allocates certain or risky and immediate or delayed payoffs to the actor and to another participant. We find that individuals are self-oriented as to social allocation of risk and delay and other-regarding with respect to expected payoffs.

Keywords: C91, D63, D81

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Güth, Werner and Levati, M. Vittoria and Ploner, Matteo, On the Social Dimension of Time and Risk Preferences: An Experimental Study. Economic Inquiry, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 261-272, April 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1120569 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2007.00067.x