The Impact of Risk Attitudes on Entrepreneurial Survival
Open accessAbstract
Risk attitudes have an impact on not only the decision to become an entrepreneur but also the survival and failure rates of entrepreneurs. Whereas recent research underpins the theoretical proposition of a positive correlation between risk attitudes and the decision to become an entrepreneur, the effects on survival are not as straightforward. Psychological research posits an inverse U-shaped relationship between risk attitudes and entrepreneurial survival. On the basis of recent waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we examine the extent to which risk attitudes influence survival rates of entrepreneurs. The empirical results confirm that persons whose risk attitudes are in the medium range survive significantly longer as entrepreneurs than do persons with particularly low or high risks.
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Self-employed workers with either very low or high levels of risk-aversion tend to remain self-employed for a shorter time, suggesting that they are less suited to self-employment.
“Selfemployed workers, with either very low or high levels of risk-aversion, a trait related to dimensions of personality as discussed in Section 6, tend to remain self-employed for a shorter time, suggesting that they are less suited to self employment (Caliendo, Fossen and Kritikos [2008]).”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Caliendo, Fossen and Kritikos [2008]
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Personality Psychology and Economics
Almlund, M., Duckworth, A. L., Heckman, J., & Kautz, T. (2011) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w16822 · Cited by 540 · see citing works
- Authors
- Caliendo, M., Fossen, F. M., & Kritikos, A. S.
- Affiliations
- German Institute for Economic Research (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Caliendo, Marco
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008
- Volume
- 76
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 45-63
- ISSN
- 0167-2681 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2078463212
- Cited by
- 277
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 24
- FWCI
- 40.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- publish.UP (University of Potsdam) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- risk preferences, entrepreneurial survival, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial failure, inverted U-shaped relationship, German Socio-Economic Panel
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