Can We Measure Individual Risk Attitudes in a Survey?

We combine a survey and an experiment with real pay-out among Peking University students to measure and validate individual risk attitudes. The experiment involves choosing between a cash payment and playing a lottery. The survey questions ask for the reservation price of a hypothetical lottery and self-assessment of risk attitude on a 0-10 scale. We confirm familiar findings: risk aversion dominates, women are more risk averse than men, risk aversion decreases with increasing parental income, risk attitudes are domain-specific. Correlations between survey measures and experimental measures, are in the right direction, but not very high. The survey measures are valid indicators of experimentally measured risk attitude, but with substantial noise remaining. Heterogeneity in levels and structures of risk attitude is large.risk attitude, survey question, experimental validation

Is Earnings Uncertainty Relevant for Educational Choice? An Empirical Analysis for China

We use the method of Dominitz and Manski (1996) to solicit anticipated wage distributions for continuing to a Master degree or going to work after completing the Bachelor degree. The means of the distributions have an effect on intention to continue as predicted by theory. The dispersions in these individual distributions have no effect on intention to continue, suggesting that anticipated earnings risk does not play a role in the decision.educational choice, wage expectations

A Study on the Employment of Graduates of Higher Education in the Context of the Financial Crisis

AbstractBased on analysis of four surveys conducted during the time period of 2003-2009, this paper examines basic characters and changes in college student employment trends under new circumstances triggered by the current global financial crisis. The data shows that the crisis has negatively influenced the growth of student employment and has aggravated the already serious imbalance of supply and demand in the Chinese job market for university graduates. Shifts in economic growth structures caused by the financial crisis have decreased demands in the job market for university graduates. Although Chinese government carried out a series of reforms aimed at promoting employment for university graduates, their individual preferences about work options and tendencies of choosing location have not been noticeably changed. This is due to the significant imbalance of socioeconomic development among geographical regions, urban and rural regions, as well as labour market segmentation

Efficiency, equity, and Adequacy: Financial Reform of China’s Compulsory Education

Danke Li is a contributing author, “家庭教育决策在中国农村教育社会性别不平等中的含义” (Household Decisions on Education and Its Implications for Gender Inequality in Rural China), pp. 131-149 (in Chinese).https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/history-books/1054/thumbnail.jp

Can we measure Individual Risk Attitudes in a Survey?

We combine a survey and an experiment with real pay-out among Peking University students to measure and validate individual risk attitudes. The experiment involves choosing between a cash payment and playing a lottery. The survey questions ask for the reservation price of a hypothetical lottery and self-assessment of risk attitude on a 0-10 scale. We confirm familiar findings: risk aversion dominates, women are more risk averse than men, risk aversion decreases with increasing parental income, risk attitudes are domain-specific. Correlations between survey measures and experimental measures, are in the right direction, but not very high. The survey measures are valid indicators of experimentally measured risk attitude, but with substantial noise remaining. Heterogeneity in levels and structure of risk attitude is large.risk attitude; survey question; experimental validation

University rank and bachelor's labour market positions in China

We report evidence that university reputation affects wages of bachelors in China. An unconditional difference between a top-100 university and a top 400-500 university of 23% is increased to some 28% by adding controls. Within the top-100 there is no differentiation in pay-off. Self-rated quality of high school, while affecting quality of university attended, has no effect on earnings.University rank Wages Labour market sector allocation