Embedded Files
Funded by the Austrian National Bank's Anniversary Funs (project number 18827)
Granted: Dec. 2022
Started: Sept. 2023
Location: Johannes Kepler University, Linz - Department of Economics
This research project investigates key aspects of education and location policy, financial market regulation, and competition policy. In times of increasing digitalization and the broad collection of performance data, it is important to understand how decision makers react to performance feedback. Risk behavior, willingness to perform, and differences between individuals and organizations are significant for effective incentive systems and the avoidance of any negative consequences. In particular, incentives in the education system are of central importance in location policy. Our project can also make an important contribution to the efficient use of resources in education. It will also help to understand how actors act in financial markets, whose incentives to risk are strongly influenced by performance relative to competitors. This increases our understanding of phenomena such as excess risk or speculative bubbles in financial markets.
Positive feedback does change risk preferences at young age: Evidence from careers in high-risk competitions
(with Hendrik Sonnabend, University Hagen)
This paper explores how positive feedback in a competitive setting shapes the evolution of gender differences in risk tolerance of children and adolescents. We use data from professional diving, a ‘real life, real risk' environment where the notion of risk is very intuitive and associated with the height of the dive. However, diving from greater heights does not mean promotion but rather an expansion of the divers' portfolio. We find that young divers are more engaged in high-risk (platform) competitions after their first win in a low-risk (springboard) competition. This effect is driven by individuals with no prior platform experience and is more pronounced for males: On average, male divers are 25% more likely to participate in platform diving after their first win compared to 10% for female divers.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse