New Evidence on the Relationship between Risk Attitudes and Self-Employment

25 Pages Posted: 2 Aug 2014

See all articles by Olga J. Skriabikova

Olga J. Skriabikova

Maastricht University

Thomas J. Dohmen

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); Maastricht University - Business Investment Research Center (BIRC)

Ben Kriechel

Maastricht University - Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of risk attitudes on the decision to become self-employed among individuals who grew up under the communist regime in Ukraine, which banned self-employment so that individuals could not observe what it is like to be self-employed. Since the intra-family transmission of self-employment experiences was largely shut down, the observed correlation between risk preferences and self-employment after transition is unlikely to be driven by parents transmitting self-employment experience and risk preferences to their children. Robustness checks on a sample of East Germans confirm that such a third factor explanation is implausible, thus shedding light on the causal nature of the relation between risk preferences and the decision to become self-employed.

Keywords: self-employment, risk attitudes, intergenerational transmission of self-employment and risk attitudes, SOEP, ULMS

JEL Classification: J24, D81, P3

Suggested Citation

Skriabikova, Olga J. and Dohmen, Thomas and Kriechel, Ben, New Evidence on the Relationship between Risk Attitudes and Self-Employment. IZA Discussion Paper No. 8354, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2475322 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2475322

Olga J. Skriabikova

Maastricht University ( email )

P.O. Box 616
Maastricht, Limburg 6200MD
Netherlands

Thomas Dohmen

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Maastricht University - Business Investment Research Center (BIRC) ( email )

P.O. Box 616
Maastricht, 6200 MD
Netherlands
+31-43-388 3832 (Phone)
+31-43-388 4856 (Fax)

Ben Kriechel

Maastricht University - Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) ( email )

P.O. Box 616
Maastricht, MD6200
Netherlands

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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