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On the stability of risk and time preferences amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Andreas C. Drichoutis Open the ORCID record for Andreas C. Drichoutis [Opens in a new window]  and
Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr.
Andreas C. Drichoutis*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, School of Applied Economics and Social Sciences, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, Greece
Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr.*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA
*
adrihout@aua.gr
rnayga@tamu.edu
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Abstract

We elicited incentivized measures of risk and time preferences from a sample of undergraduate students in Athens, Greece, in waves that preceded and overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic. We exploited the timing of several events that occurred in the course of the pandemic (e.g., first occurrence of cases and deaths, curfew, relaxation of curfew etc.) and estimated structural parameters for various theories of risk and time preferences comparing these with pre-pandemic estimates. We find no effect between the different waves or other key events of the pandemic, despite the fact that we have about 1000 responses across all waves. Overall, our subjects exhibit intertemporal stability of risk and time preferences despite the significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health and the global economy.

Keywords

Time preferencesDiscount ratesRisk preferencesPandemicNatural disasterC90D12D81D91Q54
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , June 2022 , pp. 759 - 794
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-021-09727-6.

We would like to thank the Editor and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions that greatly improved our manuscript. Data and codes to replicate the analysis and results reported in the paper have been deposited at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/sqk4a/.

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