Can self-assessed risk attitudes predict behavior under risk? Evidence from a field study in China

Abstract

This paper examines whether the self-assessed risk attitude predicts individual choice under risk in a field study on a sample of more than 200 Chinese farmers. Farmers’ self-assessed risk attitudes are elicited by the widely used German socio-economic panel (SOEP) general risk question. Individual choice in the Bomb Risk Elicitation Task (BRET) is tested. Results show that the self-assessed willingness to take risks is not significantly correlated with the actual choice in the BRET risk experiment.