The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 100 No. 4 2018

Off the Charts: Massive Unexplained Heterogeneity in a Global Study of Ambiguity Attitudes

Olivier l’Haridon¹; Ferdinand M. Vieider²; Diego Aycinena³; Agustinus Bandur⁴; Alexis Belianin⁵; Lubomír Cingl⁶; Amit Kothiyal⁷; Peter Martinsson⁸

¹ University of Rennes · ² University of Reading · ³ Universidad del Rosario · ⁴ Bina Nusantara University · ⁵ Higher School of Economics · ⁶ University of Economics · ⁷ Max Planck Institute for Human Development · ⁸ University of Gothenburg and Linköping University

Abstract

Ambiguity attitudes have been prominently used in economic models, but we still know little about their demographic correlates or their generalizability beyond the West. We analyze the ambiguity attitudes of almost 3,000 students across thirty countries. For gains, we find ambiguity aversion everywhere, while ambiguity aversion is much weaker for losses. Ambiguity attitudes change systematically with probabilities for both gains and losses. Much of the between-country variation can be explained through a fewmacroeconomic characteristics. In contrast, we find massive unexplained variation at the individual level. We also find much unexplained heterogeneity in individual responses to different decision tasks.

DOI

10.1162/rest_a_00724

Volume

100

Issue

4

Pages

664-677

Language

en

Sources

openalex crossref

Cite

APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓