209,254 research outputs found
Stability and change in risky driving from the late teens to the late twenties
Full text linkThis paper examines patterns of risky driving from the late teens to the late twenties and identifies factors associated with persistence and change in risky driving tendencies.Key findings: Rates of risky driving remained fairly stable between the ages of 19-20 and 23-24 years, but had significantly decreased by 27-28 years. While there was a general trend for levels of risky driving to decrease, considerable variability was found in the risky driving patterns of individuals over this period. Antisocial behaviour appeared to be strongly linked to persistence and change in risky driving, adding support to the view that risky driving may form part of a broader underlying propensity to engage in problem behaviour(s). Low social skills were associated with an increasing propensity for risky driving among some young drivers. Binge drinking, gender, and parental status also differentiated between drivers who exhibited different across-time patterns of risky driving. These findings add to a growing body of research, which suggests that risky drivers are not identical - the factors that underlie their behaviour may differ
Are Drinkers Prone To Engage In Risky Sexual Behaviors?
Full text linkSexually transmitted diseases pose an important public health problem around the world. Although many studies have explored the link between alcohol use and risky sexual practices, the unobserved differences among individuals make it difficult to assess whether the associations are casual in nature. In order to overcome these difficulties, we have obtained data from the Spanish Health and Sexual Behavior Survey (2003) in order to analyze risky sexual behaviors using four alternative methodologies: controlling results with a rich set of variables; identifying the impact of alcohol use while assuming there is an identical selection outcome for observed and unobserved variables; estimating alcohol consumption and risky sexual behaviors simultaneously based on instrumental variables; and using reduced-form equations to analyze the impact of alcohol prices and other alcohol policies on the likelihood of risky intercourse. We provide empirical evidence that alcohol abuse might increase the probability of risky sex and, more importantly, different alcohol policies are not only effective tools for reducing alcohol demand but also for controlling risky sexual behaviors.alcohol; sexually transmitted diseases; unobserved individual heterogeneity.
Reward context determines risky choice in pigeons and humans
Full text linkWhereas humans are risk averse for monetary gains, other animals can be risk seeking for food rewards, especially when faced with variable delays or under significant deprivation. A key difference between these findings is that humans are often explicitly told about the risky options, whereas non-human animals must learn about them from their own experience. We tested pigeons (Columba livia) and humans in formally identical choice tasks where all outcomes were learned from experience. Both species were more risk seeking for larger rewards than for smaller ones. The data suggest that the largest and smallest rewards experienced are overweighted in risky choice. This observed bias towards extreme outcomes represents a key step towards a consilience of these two disparate literatures, identifying common features that drive risky choice across phyla
Default-risky Sovereign Debt
Full text linkNot only corporate but also sovereign debtors, in particular developing countries, may get into financial difficulties. Contrary to corporate issuers, they decide themselves if they continue to fulfill their debt obligations or convert their debt. I analyze the value of a default-risky sovereign bond in a setting in which foreign trade is reduced in case the country does not fulfill its obligations. Comparing the costs of debt service with the value of the punishment via foreign trade, the country voluntarily decides when to reorganize its debt. Knowing this threshold the value of a sovereign coupon-bond can be calculated.Credit risk, sovereign debt, endogenous default
Games Parents and Adolescents Play: Risky Behaviors, Parental Reputation, and Strategic Transfers
Full text linkThis paper examines reputation formation in intra-familial interactions. We consider parental reputation in a repeated two-stage game in which adolescents decide whether to give a teen birth or drop out of high school, and given adolescent decisions, the parent decides whether to house and support his children beyond age 18. Drawing on the work of Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Kreps and Wilson (1982), we show that the parent has, under certain conditions, the incentive to penalize older children for their teenage risky behaviors in order to dissuade the younger children from the same risky behaviors. The model generates two empirical implications: the likelihood of teen risky behaviors and parental transfers to a child who engaged in teen risky behaviors will decrease with the number of remaining children at risk. We test these two implications, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort (NLSY79). Exploiting the availability of repeated observations on individual respondents and of observations on multiple siblings, we find evidence in favor of both predictions.
Stochastic dominance on optimal portfolio with one risk-less and two risky assets
Full text linkThe paper provides restrictions on the investor's utility function which are sufficient for a dominating shift no decrease in the investment in the respective asset if there are one risk free asset and two risky assets in the portfolio. The analysis is then confined to portfolio in which the distributions of assets differ by a first-degree-stochastic dominance shift.financial portfolio
Taking Chances: The Effect of Growing Up on Welfare on the Risky Behavior of Young People
Full text linkWe analyze the effect of growing up on welfare on young people's involvement in a variety of social and health risks. Young people in welfare families are much more likely to take both social and health risks. Much of the apparent link between family welfare history and risk taking disappears, however, once we account for family structure and mothers' decisions regarding their own risk taking and investment in their children. Interestingly, we find no significant effect of socio-economic status per se. Overall, we find no evidence that growing up on welfare causes young people to engage in risky behavior.youths, welfare, risky behavior, socio-economic disadvantage
Alcohol Use and Risky Behaviour: Evidence of Anxiolysis-Disinhibition from a Naturalistic Drinking Study
Full text linkAims: Alcohol use and intoxication have been widely linked with the incidence of crime and antisocial behaviour. Reduced risk perception following alcohol consumption has been proposed as a possible reason for why people take part in such activities. This study aimed to identify if “intention to act” and “perception of risk” were similarly or differentially affected by alcohol consumed in a natural environment. Furthermore the relationship between amount consumed and degree of impact was investigated.
Design: A single factor independent groups design was employed.
Participants: 60 participants aged 18-23 were recruited.
Measures: Participants indicated their likelihood of engagement in a range of acts, and stated how risky they thought each behaviour was via a questionnaire.
Findings: Data analysis revealed a significant effect of alcohol group on reported likelihood of engagement such that likelihood increased with alcohol consumption. However, perceived risk was not subject to any effect, and increased intention to engage in a risky behaviour was not associated with a decreased perception of risk.
Conclusions: These results may provide support for an anxiolysis-disinhibition model of alcohol induced risky behaviour. Certainly the data indicate that cognitive appraisal of the behaviours is not impaired or related to increased engagement
Co-evolution vs. Neural Networks; An Evaluation of UK Risky Money
Full text linkThe performance of a "capital certain" Divisia index constructed using the same components included in the Bank of England"s MSI plus national savings; a "risky" Divisia index constructed by adding bonds, shares and unit trusts to the list of assets included in the first index; and a capital certain simple sum index for comparison is compared. nce suggests that co-evolutionary strategies are superior to neural networks in the majority of cases. The risky money index performs at least as well as the Bank of England Divisia index when combined with interest rate information. Notably, the provision of long term interest rates improves the out-of-sample forecasting performance of the Bank of England Divisia index in all cases examinedEvolutionary Strategies, Risk Adjusted Divisia, Inflation, Neural Networks
Of black swans and tossed coins : is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
Full text linkWhen faced with risky decisions, people tend to be risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses (the reflection effect). Studies examining this risk-sensitive decision making, however, typically ask people directly what they would do in hypothetical choice scenarios. A recent flurry of studies has shown that when these risky decisions include rare outcomes, people make different choices for explicitly described probabilities than for experienced probabilistic outcomes. Specifically, rare outcomes are overweighted when described and underweighted when experienced. In two experiments, we examined risk-sensitive decision making when the risky option had two equally probable (50%) outcomes. For experience-based decisions, there was a reversal of the reflection effect with greater risk seeking for gains than for losses, as compared to description-based decisions. This fundamental difference in experienced and described choices cannot be explained by the weighting of rare events and suggests a separate subjective utility curve for experience
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