Direkt zum Inhalt

Weather and Financial Risk-Taking: Is Happiness the Channel?

SOEPpapers 218, 58 S.

Cahit Guven

2009

get_appDownload (PDF  365 KB)

Abstract

Weather variables, and sunshine in particular, are found to be strongly correlated with financial variables. I consider self-reported happiness as a channel through which sunshine affects financial variables. I examine the influence of happiness on risk-taking behavior by instrumenting individual happiness with regional sunshine, and I find that happy people appear to be more risk-averse in financial decisions, and accordingly choose safer investments. Happy people take more time for making decisions and have more self-control. Happy people also expect to live longer and accordingly seem more concerned about the future than the present, and expect less inflation.



JEL-Classification: D1;D91;G11
Keywords: happiness, risk-taking, climate
Frei zugängliche Version: (econstor)
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/150765

keyboard_arrow_up