Determinants of households' risk

Abstract

This paper deals with risk taking attitude and behaviour of households in Spain. It analyses whether business owning households are more risk tolerant than non owners, and which household features are conditioning risk taking perceptions and their relation to risk behaviour. For that, it uses data from the 2005 Spanish Survey of Household Finance (EFF). The paper improves the definition and measurement of risk behaviour and stress the relevance of owning a business or your home on your risk characteristics. Results will help to increase the understanding of risk tolerance and behaviour. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.