Abstract
This paper investigates whether there is a link between cognitive ability, risk aversion, and impatience, using a representative sample of roughly 1,000 German adults. Subjects participate in choice experiments with monetary incentives measuring risk aversion, and impatience over an annual horizon, and conduct two different, widely used, tests of cognitive ability. We find that lower cognitive ability is associated with greater risk aversion, and more pronounced impatience. These relationships are significant, and robust to controlling for personal characteristics, education, income, and measures of credit constraints. We perform a series of additional robustness checks, which help rule out other possible confounds.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1238-1260 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | American Economic Review |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2010 |
Keywords
- LABOR-MARKET OUTCOMES
- DECISION-MAKING
- SAVING DECISIONS
- FIELD EXPERIMENT
- DISCOUNT RATES
- SELF-CONTROL
- DELAY
- GRATIFICATION
- INTELLIGENCE
- ATTITUDES
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Replication data for: Are Risk Aversion and Impatience Related to Cognitive Ability?
Dohmen, T. (Creator), Falk, A. (Contributor), Sunde, U. (Contributor) & Huffman, D. (Contributor), ICPSR, 11 Oct 2019
DOI: 10.3886/e112352v1, https://doi.org/10.3886%2Fe112352v1
Dataset/Software: Dataset