Individual's risk attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa: Determinants and reliability of self-reported risk in Burkina Faso

Risk taking is an important topic in Africa, as access to financial institutions and social security is scarce. Data on risk attitudes in Africa is limited and the available data collected might not be reliable. We investigate the determinants of risk attitudes and the reliability of survey data in a sub-Saharan country, like Burkina Faso. Using a large representative panel survey of 31 677 individuals, we analyze the determinants and the test-retest reliability for different risk attitudes in general, traffic and financial matters. Our results show that determinants such as individual's sex and age are significantly associated with willingness to take risk. Women have more reliable risk measures compared to men, older individuals have more reliable risk measures than younger individuals and those with high education exhibit a higher reliability in terms of their self-reported risk attitude compared to people with low education. Reliability differs across risk attitudes; risk-taking in traffic has the highest test-retest reliability followed by willingness to take risk in general and financial matters.