International Journal of Business and Economics Volume 17, No. 3 December, 2018

Gender Differences in Relative Risk Aversion with Data from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances

Efstathia Korkou

School of Business and Information Systems, York College, The City University of New York, U.S.A.

Abstract

Earlier research has presented a pattern of decreasing financial relative risk aversion to all types of households, yet greater financial relative risk aversion by women versus men. This current paper brings into light new important evidence about the relative risk aversion of female investors over time working with data from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) for 1989 and 2013 with the latter year reflecting the after-effect of the 2007-2008 financial crisis period. Employing Repeated-Imputation Inference (RII) techniques, we replicate existing results from the 1989 SCF and seek new results from the 2013 SCF. The 1989 results are in large corroborated, while the new results from 2013 indicate a reverse path of increasing (for single-headed households) and constant (for married couples) relative risk aversion, where gender differences persist. Based on our 2013 results, we offer policy and practice improvements.

Keywords： relative risk aversion, individual investors, gender differences, survey of consumer finances, replication, RII techniques, policymaking.

JEL Classifications：D81, G11, J16.

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