The SGG risk elicitation task:Implementation and results

We propose a simple task for the elicitation of risk attitudes, initially used in Sabater-Grande and Georgantzís (2002) [SGG], capturing two dimensions of individual decision making: subjects’ average willingness to choose risky projects and their sensitivity towards variations in the return to risk. We report results from a large dataset obtained from the test and discuss regularities and the desirability of its bi-dimensionality when used to explain behaviour in other contexts.Psychometric Tests, Decision-making; Lotteries; Risk aversion.

CULTURAL AND RISK-RELATED DETERMINANTS OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ULTIMATUM BARGAINING

We study culture and risk aversion as causes of gender differences in ultimatum bargaining. It has often been conjectured in the literature that gender differences in bargaining experiments are partly due to differences in risky decision making. Using the data obtained from our experimental sessions with Spanish subjects, we are able to disentangle risk-related and genuinely gender-specific effects in ultimatum games framed as salary negotiation between an employer and an employee. First, we confirm the broadly accepted result that women are more risk averse than men. Gender differences in both employer and employee-subjects' behavior remain significant after risk attitudes are accounted for. In fact, we show that the reported gender differences are not because of but rather despite females' higher risk aversion. Gender effects are found to depend also on cultural differences. Greek and Spanish females reject more and offer lower wages than males. British subjects exhibit gender effects only with respect to employee behavior, but the sign of the effect is opposite to that observed in the case of Greece and Spain.Ultimatum bargaining, salaries, gender, risk attitudes, experiments

Ultimatum salary bargaining with real effort

We report experimental results on ultimatum salary bargaining with a real task performed by employee subjects. Compared to the baseline treatment with a hypothetical task, the introduction of a real task raises offers, accepted wages and rejection rates

Negociación salarial tipo ultimátum con tarea real: diferencias entre Grecia, España y Reino Unido

From experiments run in Greece, Spain and the UK, this paper studies ultimatum bargaining over the wage paid in order to have a subject perform a given real task. Compared with Greece and Spain, signifcantly higher wage offers and lower acceptance probabilities are found in the UK. These effects lead to higher wages in the UK. Country differences in both employer and employee behavior have a clear gender component. Specifcally, we fnd that Greek and Spanish females offer lower wages than British females. Contrary to what is obtained for UK subjects, Greek and Spanish females reject more than males.Realizamos experimentos en Grecia, España y Reino Unido para estudiar la negociación salarial tipo ultimátum por la realización de una tarea real. Encontramos ofertas salariales signifcativamente más altas y menor probabilidad de aceptación en Reino Unido que en los otros dos países, lo que conlleva salarios más altos en Reino Unido. Las diferencias en el comportamiento de los sujetos tienen un claro componente de género. Concretamente, encontramos que las mujeres griegas y españolas ofrecen salarios menores que las británicas. Además, en Grecia y España se observa una mayor tasa de rechazo por parte de las mujeres que de los hombres. Palabras clave: juego del ultimátum, diferencias de género, experimentos

The role of «perceived loss» aversion on credit screening: an experiment

A major characteristic of credit markets is information asymmetry.To combat its problems, as credit rationing, principals can use a menu of contracts to screen clients with different risk level. We conduct a laboratory experiment to address an important question for such settings —does the framing of the offered menu of contracts interfere with the self-selection mechanism? The answer is yes. We find subjects' choices shift when the same (positive) outcomes of the same menu of contracts are presented in two different frames. Subjects exhibit loss aversion in their perception of the positive outcomes below the reference point, and self-selection fails to occur.Uno de los mayores problemas actuales es el racionamiento del crédito, derivado funda- mentalmente de las asimetrías informativas. Para disminuir las asimetrías informativas, los bancos pueden aplicar «screening». Esto es, pueden ofrecer a sus clientes un menú de contratos y, dependien- do de la elección de éstos, inferir su nivel de riesgo. Si las elecciones de los clientes de alto riesgo y de bajo riesgo difieren entre sí, hay autoselección de clientes y, por tanto, «screening». En este artículo presentamos un experimento que examina una cuestión esencial en estos contextos —¿Interfiere el punto de referencia de los clientes en su autoselección?— La respuesta es sí. De hecho, las elecciones cambian cuando los mismos datos (positivos) de los mismos contratos se presentan con una referen- cia diferente. Por ello, proponemos una aproximación teórica derivada de la «Prospect Theory» para explicar nuestros resultados. Observamos una aversión a las pérdidas percibidas que hace fracasar la autoselección

Framing and repetition effects on risky choices: A behavioural approach

Framing effects play an important role in individual decision-making under risk. This investigation revisits framing effects caused by two versions of the choice list procedure, lottery vs. lottery (LL) and lottery vs. certainty (LC). In the first, subjects face pairwise choices between lotteries within a choice list. In the second, subjects face pairwise choices between a safe amount and a lottery. In order to measure the sensitivity of subjects’ choices to the structure of the tasks, we implement an incentive-compatible experiment using repetition in order to have a robust measure of the subjects’ propensity to make a choice. Particularly, it is tested whether variations in the number of options offered in a choice list with and without variations in the range of options affect subjects’ choices. Our results suggest that changes in framework disturb subjects’ risk preferences only in the LC version when the range of options presented has been varied

The SGG risk elicitation task: implementation and results

This is a longer version of a companion paper accepted for publication in Psicothema, under the title: “The lottery-panel task for bi-dimensional parameter-free elicitation of risk attitudes”.We propose a simple task for the elicitation of risk attitudes, initially used in Sabater-Grande and Georgantzís (2002) [SGG], capturing two dimensions of individual decision making: subjects’ average willingness to choose risky projects and their sensitivity towards variations in the return to risk. We report results from a large dataset obtained from the test and discuss regularities and the desirability of its bi-dimensionality when used to explain behaviour in other contexts.Financial support by Bancaixa (P1 1B2007-14) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (SEJ2008/04636/ECON). Georgantzís acknowledges financial support by the Junta de Andalucía (P07-SEJ-03155)

The lottery-panel task for bi-dimensional parameter-free elicitation of risk attitudes

We propose a simple task for the elicitation of risk attitudes, initially used in Sabater-Grande and Georgantzís (2002) [SGG], capturing two dimensions of individual decision making: subjects’ average willingness to choose risky projects and their sensitivity towards variations in the return to risk. We report results from a large dataset obtained from the test and discuss regularities and the desirability of its bi-dimensionality when used to explain behaviour in other contexts.Financial support by Bancaixa (P1 1B2007‐14) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (SEJ2008/04636/ECON). Georgantzís acknowledges financial support by the Junta de Andalucía (P07‐SEJ‐03155) and the hospitality at LEM, Paris II

Gender, self-confidence, sports, and preferences for competition

Gender differences in the willingness to compete may explain the small percentage of women in top-level positions in business, science, or politics. This research examines with a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) the conditions, including gender, that relate to competition preferences and the different paths that may lead to a decision to enter competition. The results of the economic experiment show that no single condition but combinations of characteristics explain preferences for competition. Furthermore, results show that experience in competitive sports relates to a higher self-confidence and increases the willingness to enter in competitive systems. Interestingly, one of the causal paths leading to enter competition is being a risk-averse woman with experience in competitive sports. These results provide insights to guide policy interventions to reduce the gender gap in preferences for competition and, therefore, to rise the percentage of women in top-level positions.The authors thank Pedro Carmona and Alexandre Momparler, University of Valencia for their careful reading and suggestions. Irene Comeig and Ainhoa Jaramillo-Gutiérrez acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of EconomyECO2013-46550-R grant

Risk attitude elicitation using a multi-lottery choice task: Real vs. hypothetical incentives

We present a bi-dimensional multi lottery choice task which can be used in order to elicit the agents' risk attitudes in financial environments. This task is implemented both with hypothetical and real monetary incentives in a between-subjects and a within-subjects experiment. We observe choices involving significantly lower risk aversion on aggregate when incentives are real. The differences grow with the stakes at play. We also obtain significant differences between hypothetical and real rewards in both utility weighting and probability weighting estimated parameters. We find that the use of hypothetical incentives in multi-lottery choice tasks for evaluating individual risk aversion can be misleading