We conduct a contest experiment to study if spread seeking and effort can be managed in a situation where participants can invest in increasing both the mean and the spread of an uncertain performance variable. Subjects are treated with different prize schemes and in accordance with theory, we...

We conduct a contest experiment where participants can invest in increasing both the mean and the spread of an uncertain performance variable. Subjects are treated with different prize schemes and in accordance with theory we observe substantial investments in spread. We find that both types of...

We conduct a contest experiment where participants can invest in increasing both the mean and the spread of an uncertain performance variable. Subjects are treated with different prize schemes and in accordance with theory we observe substantial investments in spread. We find that both types of...

This experimental study investigates insurance decisions in low-probability, high-loss risk situations. Results indicate that subjects consider the probability of loss (loss size) when they make buying decisions (paying decisions). Most individuals are risk averse with no specific threshold...

This experimental study investigates insurance decisions in low-probability, high-loss risk situations. Results indicate that subjects consider the probability of loss (loss size) when they make buying decisions (paying decisions). Most individuals are risk averse with no specific threshold...

In this paper, we first replicated Harrison et al. (2012). Then, we studied if the group’s size has an impact on group’s risk aversion. In line with Harrison et al. (2012), our results confirm that no significant differences occur between individuals and groups risk aversion in three-person...

In this paper, we first replicated Harrison et al. (2012). Then, we studied if the group's size has an impact on group's risk aversion. In line with Harrison et al. (2012), our results confirm that no significant differences occur between individuals and groups risk aversion in three-person...

In this paper we investigated group size impact on risk aversion when a majority rule is applied. Drawing on the widely used Holt and Laury’s (2002) lottery pairs, we observed a risky shift for both individual and groups regardless of their size. However, groups choices are shown to be closer...

Recent experimental studies suggest that risk aversion is negatively related to cognitive ability. In this paper we report evidence that this relation might be spurious. We recruit a large subject pool drawn from the general Danish population for our experiment. By presenting subjects with...

Recent experimental evidence suggests that noisy behavior correlates strongly with cognitive ability. This puts previous studies that found a negative relation between cognitive ability and risk aversion into perspective and in particular raises the question of how to achieve robust inference in...