Attitudes toward uncertainty among the poor: an experiment in rural Ethiopia

作者：Akay Alpaslan; Martinsson Peter; Medhin Haileselassie; Trautmann Stefan T^*

来源：Theory and Decision, 2012, 73(3): 453-464.

DOI：10.1007/s11238-011-9250-y

• Risk attitudes
• Ambiguity attitudes
• Poverty
• Agriculture

We investigate risk and ambiguity attitudes among Ethiopian farmers in one of the poorest regions of the world. Strong risk aversion and ambiguity aversion were found with the Ethiopian farmers. We compared their attitudes to those of a Western university student sample elicited by the same decision task. Ambiguity aversion was similar for farmers and students, but farmers were more risk averse. Our results show that ambiguity aversion is not restricted to Western student populations, and that studies of agricultural decisions may benefit from explicitly considering ambiguity attitudes.

• 出版日期2012-9