A Note on Measuring Risk Aversion

In this paper we propose a new method to elicit the intensity of individual's risk preferences. Our method uses a simple multiple price-list format and is based on the increasing risk definitions of Rothschild and Stiglitz (1970, 1971). We are thus able to classify individuals as more or less risk-averse without assuming an expected utility framework. In a lab experiment we directly compare our method to the well-known method of Holt and Laury (2002) and find that our approach yields higher estimates of relative risk aversion that are much closer to what is observed in the field.