IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/rwirep/187.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risky Business – The Role of Individual Risk Attitudes in Occupational Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Isphording, Ingo E.

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationship of individual risk attitudes and occupational sorting with respect to occupational earnings risk. By using the German Mikrozensus, a precise measure for earnings risk is computed as the occupation-wide standard deviation of wages. Following the procedure proposed by Bonin (2007), this earnings risk measure is used as dependent variable in cross-sectional and panel data estimations using the SOEP data of 2004 and 2006, including a measure of the individual willingness to take risks. The significant relationship in cross-sectional analyses vanishes when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. Cross-sectional results seem to be driven by the correlation of unobserved ability and willingness to take risks, and are potentially biased by an attenuation bias due to unstable risk preferences. This study contributes to the existing literature by showing the importance of controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and instability of attitudes when examing the effects of personality traits in labor market decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Isphording, Ingo E., 2010. "Risky Business – The Role of Individual Risk Attitudes in Occupational Choice," Ruhr Economic Papers 187, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/37003/1/627393969.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Juergen Schupp & Gert Wagner, 2005. "Individual Risk Attitudes: New Evidence from a Large, Representative, Experimentally-Validated Survey," Working Papers 2096, The Field Experiments Website.
    2. David Powell & Hui Shan, 2012. "Income Taxes, Compensating Differentials, and Occupational Choice: How Taxes Distort the Wage-Amenity Decision," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 224-247, February.
    3. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    4. Bonin, Holger & Dohmen, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Huffman, David & Sunde, Uwe, 2007. "Cross-sectional earnings risk and occupational sorting: The role of risk attitudes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 926-937, December.
    5. Budría, Santiago & Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada & Hartog, Joop, 2009. "Risk Attitude and Wage Growth: Replication and Reconstruction," IZA Discussion Papers 4124, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Marco Caliendo & Frank Fossen & Alexander Kritikos, 2009. "Risk attitudes of nascent entrepreneurs–new evidence from an experimentally validated survey," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 153-167, February.
    7. Parker,Simon C., 2006. "The Economics of Self-Employment and Entrepreneurship," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521030632, November.
    8. Chevalier, Arnaud, 2002. "Just Like Daddy: The occupational choice of UK Graduates," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2002 47, Royal Economic Society.
    9. Pfeifer, Christian, 2008. "A Note on Risk Aversion and Labour Market Outcomes: Further Evidence from German Survey Data," IZA Discussion Papers 3523, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Ekelund, Jesper & Johansson, Edvard & Jarvelin, Marjo-Riitta & Lichtermann, Dirk, 2005. "Self-employment and risk aversion--evidence from psychological test data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 649-659, October.
    11. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    12. Ham, Roger & Junankar, Pramod N. (Raja) & Wells, Robert, 2009. "Occupational Choice: Personality Matters," IZA Discussion Papers 4105, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. David Powell & Hui Shan, 2012. "Income Taxes, Compensating Differentials, and Occupational Choice: How Taxes Distort the Wage-Amenity Decision," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 224-247, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cho, In Soo & Orazem, Peter, 2011. "Risk Aversion or Risk Management?: How Measures of Risk Aversion Affect Firm Entry and Firm Survival," Staff General Research Papers Archive 34162, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Simon Fietze & Elke Holst & Verena Tobsch, 2011. "Germany’s Next Top Manager: Does Personality Explain the Gender Career Gap?," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 22(3), pages 240-273.
    3. Fouarge, Didier & Kriechel, Ben & Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Occupational sorting of school graduates: The role of economic preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 335-351.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:zbw:rwirep:0187 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ingo E. Isphording, 2010. "Risky Business – The Role of Individual Risk Attitudes in Occupational Choice," Ruhr Economic Papers 0187, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Bonin, Holger & Dohmen, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Huffman, David & Sunde, Uwe, 2007. "Cross-sectional earnings risk and occupational sorting: The role of risk attitudes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 926-937, December.
    4. Raziiakhan Abdieva & Burulcha Sulaimanova & Kamalbek Karymshakov, 2019. "Gender differences, risk attitude and entrepreneurship in Kyrgyzstan," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 17-30.
    5. Catia Batista & Janis Umblijs, 2014. "Migration, risk attitudes, and entrepreneurship: evidence from a representative immigrant survey," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-25, December.
    6. SeEun Jung, 2017. "The gender wage gap and sample selection via risk attitudes," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(2), pages 318-335, May.
    7. Jung, SeEun & Choe, Chung & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2018. "Gender wage gaps and risky vs. secure employment: An experimental analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 112-121.
    8. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    9. Dohmen, Thomas & Lehmann, Hartmut & Pignatti, Norberto, 2016. "Time-varying individual risk attitudes over the Great Recession: A comparison of Germany and Ukraine," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 182-200.
    10. Simon Fietze & Elke Holst & Verena Tobsch, 2011. "Germany’s Next Top Manager: Does Personality Explain the Gender Career Gap?," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 22(3), pages 240-273.
    11. Cho, In Soo & Orazem, Peter, 2011. "Risk Aversion or Risk Management?: How Measures of Risk Aversion Affect Firm Entry and Firm Survival," Staff General Research Papers Archive 34162, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    12. Holger Bonin & Amelie Constant & Konstantinos Tatsiramos & Klaus Zimmermann, 2012. "Ethnic persistence, assimilation and risk proclivity," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-16, December.
    13. Wölfel, Oliver & Heineck, Guido, 2012. "Parental risk attitudes and children's secondary school track choice," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 727-743.
    14. Michael Fritsch & Alina Rusakova, 2010. "Personality Traits, Self-Employment, and Professions," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 343, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    15. Jansen, Anika & Pfeifer, Harald & Raecke, Julia, 2017. "Only the brave? Risk and time preferences of decision makers and firms’ investment in worker training," Research Memorandum 004, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    16. Necker, Sarah & Voskort, Andrea, 2014. "Intergenerational transmission of risk attitudes – A revealed preference approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 66-89.
    17. Nunziata, Luca & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2014. "The Protestant Ethic and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Religious Minorities from the Former Holy Roman Empire," MPRA Paper 53566, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Daniel Pollmann & Thomas Dohmen & Franz Palm, 2020. "Dispersion estimation; Earnings risk; Censoring; Quantile regression; Occupational choice; Sorting; Risk preferences; SOEP; IABS," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 028, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    19. Marco Castillo & Ragan Petrie & Maximo Torero, 2010. "On The Preferences Of Principals And Agents," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(2), pages 266-273, April.
    20. Bernd Hardeweg & Lukas Menkhoff & Hermann Waibel, 2013. "Experimentally Validated Survey Evidence on Individual Risk Attitudes in Rural Thailand," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(4), pages 859-888.
    21. Werner Bönte & Monika Piegeler, 2013. "Gender gap in latent and nascent entrepreneurship: driven by competitiveness," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(4), pages 961-987, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk attitudes; occupational sorting; earnings risk; mundlak transformation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:187. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rwiesde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.