An Empirical Test of the Interval Approach for Estimating Risk Preferences

Previous attempts to measure agricultural decision makers' risk preferences have obtained values of the Arrow-Pratt coefficient in the range of approximately -.0002 to .0012. The recently developed interval approach for elicitation of risk preferences was used to estimate risk attitudes for Minnesota swine producers. Constant and decreasing absolute risk aversion were predominant among the sample. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents were in the Arrow-Pratt interval of -.0002 to .0003. A discriminant analysis using producer attributes and three estimated risk intervals concluded that 50 percent of the respondents could be classified in the correct risk interval.

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