Experiments on risk attitude: The case of Chinese students

This paper examines Chinese studentsʹ risk attitudes using selling and buying experiments with lotteries. We found that subjects were more risk averse during the buying experiment than during the selling experiment, suggesting an endowment effect. In the selling experiment, subjects were risk loving when there was a low win probability and risk averse with a high win probability, whereas they were risk averse in the buying experiment. Using the prize money won during the experiment as a measure of wealth, we found decreasing absolute risk aversion. Subjectsʹ risk attitudes as revealed in the experiments explain their risky asset holding behavior.