Risk taking and the menstrual cycle

We tend take preferences as given and constant, but there is mounting evidence that preferences change over the life cycle and over external circumstances, as I reported before. There may now even evidence that preferences that preferences follow a predictable cycle, at least for women.Matthew Pearson and Burkhard Schipper asked an unusual question to the female participants in an otherwise

Using oaths to elicit true preferences

Economists always find data elicited from surveys very suspect. Unless money or actual decisions are on the line, people may say anything. For non-monetary matters, this is particularly important problem, as there is no market observation that can provide more reliable data.Nicolas Jacquemet, Robert-Vincent Joule, Stéphane Luchini and Jason Shogren look whether a simple trick can provide a more

Risk aversion is learned behavior

We often consider preferences to be given and unchanging. I reported earlier about risk aversion to be found to be changing according to external circumstances. But this can still be rationalized as invariant preferences if one increases the state space over which preferences are formed to include these circumstances. But could preferences be learned? There is no doubt about this. Look around you