Risk preferences, gender effects and Bayesian econometrics

Alam, Jess and Georgalos, Konstantinos and Rolls, Harry (2022) Risk preferences, gender effects and Bayesian econometrics. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 202. pp. 168-183. ISSN 0167-2681

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Abstract

Gender differences in decision making is a topic that has attracted much attention in the literature and the debate seems to be inconclusive. A method that is often used in the economics literature to account for gender effects is by estimating econometric structural models and testing the significance of the estimated parameters. In this paper we focus on estimations of preference models and we show how omitting to account for behavioural heterogeneity can lead to failures in identifying potential differences. Using data from risky choice experiments, we compare the traditional representative agent Maximum Likelihood Estimation approach against two more flexible inference methods that allow for heterogeneity at the individual level, the Maximum Simulated Likelihood Estimation, and the Hierarchical Bayesian modelling. We show how ignoring heterogeneity may lead to failures capturing gender differences and we suggest the use of Bayesian modelling to effectively estimate the underlying parameters.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Additional Information:
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 202, 2022 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.08.013
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1400/1407
Subjects:
?? gender differencesrisk preferencesloss aversionrank-dependent utilityprospect theorymaximum likelihoodhierarchical bayesian modellingorganizational behavior and human resource managementeconomics and econometrics ??
ID Code:
174941
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
24 Aug 2022 09:35
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Sep 2024 00:43