On the sources of risk preferences in rural Vietnam

In this paper, I provide a new empirical evidence that natural environment can shape individual risk preferences. By combining historical data on climate variation and contemporary survey questions on risk aversion, I find that risk aversion is significantly different for people who live in areas that have suffered high frequency of natural disasters. In particular, individuals highly affected by climate volatility show a long term risk aversion. The finding also supports the hypothesis that when people used to live in risky environment, an incremental increase in risk affects their risk preferences less.