Problem: This study aims to examine the factors that influence the individual's different choice of risk level. Demographic characteristics are the underlying factors being analyzed in the study with a special emphasis on geographic factors – this in order to analyze and explain the Swedish individual’s approach to risk. Based on certified private advisers’ perspective, the study will also examine their approach to manage individuals’ risk. Purpose: Studying the differences in risk aversion among individuals when making investment decisions, based on demographic factors and geographical areas. Theory: The essay’s theoretical framework deals with theories covering behavioral finance, the risk appetite development in individuals at a demographic and geographic way, and an overview of previous research on the subject. Method: We conducted a quantitative study in which 340 respondents were asked to answer a survey. We also interviewed three certified counselors from three different banks in Sweden. Conclusions: In line with behavioral finance theory, people are not rational when making investment decisions. The study concludes that people in big cities tend to be more risk-averse than people in smaller cities. Sex is shown to be a differentiating factor with men having a higher risk-aversion than women. A higher income and level of education leads to a higher risk attitude and marital status affects the risk appetite where a married person has a higher risk appetite than a person who is single. Age and education, showed to have no relationship to the level of risk.

Age, salary, family status, and health status are reported to be linked to high deductible health plan (HDHP) enrollment for pre-Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans. There has been little research on HDHP enrollment post-ACA. This study quantitatively examined the demographic variables and attitude toward risk that contribute to enrollment in a HDHP that conforms to the ACA minimum essential coverage standards. Risk taking was measured by the Domain Specific Risk Taking Scale. Other independent variables were participant age, annual salary, employee status, enrollment tier, and gender. There were 144 participants recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform who participated in the research survey. The results of binary logistic regression analysis indicated that age and the presence of children on coverage predict HDHP enrollment. Older employees and employees with at least 1 child on coverage are less likely to enroll in a HDHP. As almost 40% of adults in the United States are covered under a HDHP and this number is expected to increase, it is important to determine the factors related to HDHP enrollment. By identifying the factors related to HDHP enrollment, better educational materials may be developed for employees related to the complex and often confusing insurance decision-making process thus supporting positive social change in the health insurance industry.

This study is to discuss the retailer¡¦s order quantity decisions in a situation of two- echelon channel. When the upper manufacturer or wholesaler provides or does not provide the return policy, how the downstream retailer does the best strategy to respond to¡HDoes the return policy influence the retailer¡¦s will of order merchandise¡HAnd how does the risk attitudes of the retailer influence his order quantity decision¡H Different form the papers before, we use the method of maximum utility to find the best solution. We also refer to the model developed by Lau & Lau (1999), and conduct a model for the retailers who are different risk attitude to make strategic decisions after simplified and modified it. First, the manufacturer quotes for the wholesale price of merchandise and the buyback price of returned merchandise. After considering this information of the quotation of prices, then the retailer can do the order quantity decision in accordance with his own risk attitude. Because there are few paper talk about how the risk attitudes influence pricing¡Border decision and return policy, we hope this paper can become a useful reference material and more and more related researches will been issued in the future to provide suggestion for business .

­^¤å´£­n¡G A utility function model of individual credit card holder based on their spending behavior is constructed in this research. An accumulation of the individual utility of three different risk attitudes of cardholders may be useful for promoting the profits of credit card business for banks. Due to the privacy of cardholders and the lack of real data, a questionnaire sampling is used to collect data for this study. A result of this experimental study indicates that credit card holders with a different sex, age, level of education, asset condition, seniority, and occupation have different risk tendency. Based on 249 effective samples in this research, credit card holders who belong to females, teenagers, relatively low educated, without real estate, middle seniority, and relatively volatile occupation are more risk seeking. Relatively risk seeking credit card holders have the tendency to make use of their revolving credit and to borrow cash or to buy financial products with their credit cards. For those with three different risk attitudes, their default of credit card loans are not significantly different. The finding indicates relatively risk seeking cardholders may contribute more profits to the credit card business for banks. A risk attitude classification model built by artificial neural network has also been developed. The model may assist banks' administrators using their applicants' demographics to distinguish their risk attitude for approving an appropriate credit limit for a cardholder's expenditure to promote the total credit card profit for banks.

This study examines the changes in the inside ownership structure of companies after undergoes initial public offering in Taiwan. After initial public offering, the company¡¦s shares are in public possession while inside shareholders only possess part of its shares. To maximize their own interests, inside shareholders¡¦ ownership policies may vary due to different factors. Literature review shows that after IPOs the inside shareholders¡¦ share tends to be dropping but previous research focuses mostly on the changes in operating performance and ownership structure after IPOs. DeMarzo and Urosevic (2006) believe that the changes in inside ownership structure are due mainly to the trade-off between monitoring incentives and diversification. My study aims at companies which undergoes IPOs in Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation or at GreTai Securities Market between Jan. 1st 1998 and Dec. 31st 2000. The article investigates how such factors as, corporate value, corporate risks, inside/outside shareholders¡¦ risk tolerance and the ownership structure of companies which undergoes IPOs, have effects on inside shareholders¡¦ share-holding adjustment speed, long-term share holding equivalence level as well as the long-term share holding differences between inside/outside stockholders and little investors. My findings substantiate my assumption that risk factors and monitoring incentives do have effects on the shareholders¡¦ ownership policies and that factors mentioned above do have different effects on the inside ownership structure of IPO companies. The more inside stockholders avert risks, the higher the share-holding adjustment speed becomes. In contrast, the more share inside shareholders possess during IPO, the lower the speed. Inside shareholders¡¦ optimal ownership policies are positively relevant to the corporate value and negatively relevant to corporate risks. They are also positively relevant to the risk aversion of investors. The degree of risk aversion on the part of both investors and inside shareholders also influences ownership structures of various shareholders.

In this paper the authors are trying to understand what separates men from women when they save and invest their money. But also what factors that influence them in their decisions. To investigate how men and women actually act when investing their money the authors construct a survey. The authors also turn to the Swedish banks for information on how they think there customers are behaving. The authors find that men are more risk- taking than women and therefore invest more in products with higher risk, for example shares. The research also shows that women feel they have less knowledge then men when it comes to investments. It also shows that women put more trust in others when they are making investment choices. Specifically they are turning to the banks for advice on how to invest their money. Men seem to trust their own ability more and therefore make their own choices. The authors also show that men and women have different goals in their savings. Many men save their money to live on passive income while women tend to save in order to have a buffer for unexpected events. Thus, the authors find that the individual's willingness to take risk is a factor in how individuals invest their money. But even its own perceived knowledge and goals of saving. Furthermore, the authors show that the correlation between women choosing to invest in safer products with lower yields and their wealth. Because women do not take the same risks as men in their investments, their investments are expected to generate less return then men’s investments. / I denna uppsats försöker författarna förstå vad som skiljer män och kvinnor åt när de väljer att spara och investera sina pengar. Men även vilka faktorer som påverkar dem i deras beslut. För att undersöka hur män och kvinnor faktiskt agerar ändvänder sig författarna av en enkätundersökning. Författarna vänder sig även till banker i Sverige för att få en bild över hur de ser på sina kunders investeringsbeteende. Författarna finner att män är mer risktagande än kvinnor och därför investerar i produkter med högre risk som t.ex. aktier. Undersökningen visar även på att kvinnor upplever sig ha mindre kunskaper än vad män har inom investeringar. Kvinnorna lägger även mer tillit till andra när de ska göra sina investeringsval. De vänder sig oftare till banken för råd om hur de skall investera sina pengar. Författarna visar även på att män och kvinnor har olika mål i sitt sparande. Många män sparar sina pengar för att kunna leva på passiva inkomster medan kvinnor tenderar att spara för att ha en buffert. Således finner författarna att individens vilja att ta risk är en faktor som påverkar hur individen investerar sina pengar. Men även dennes egna upplevda kunskap samt målet med sparandet. Vidare visar författarna på att det finns en korrelation mellan att kvinnor väljer att investera i säkrare produkter med lägre avkastning och deras förmögenhet. Eftersom kvinnor inte tar samma risker som män i sina investeringar kan deras förmögenhet väntas bli mindre en männens.

<p> </p><p>The statistics has shown that men and women have different investing strategies, where men tend to choose riskier investments and women lean towards less risky investments. The financial theory states that individuals are risk averse in general, and some prior studies have shown that women are more so than men. Moreover, financial knowledge and experience have been pointed out to be one of the factors affecting one’s financial risk tolerance. This paper researches these issues by addressing the following to questions: Are there any gender differences in Financial Risk Tolerance? Does knowledge and experience have impact on Financial Risk Tolerance? A literature search has been done and relevant theory has been gathered and review, which served as a base and a framework for conducting this study. A quantitative methodological study has been carried out by handing out questionnaires, based on a 13-item Financial Risk Tolerance scale developed by Grabble & Lytton (1999). The target population was the Umeå University students. The size of the sample was 139. The findings of this paper confirm prior studies which state that women, in general, are less risk tolerant then men – female students scored lower on the Financial Risk Tolerance Score than male students. Furthermore, this study also shows that one’s Financial Risk Tolerance is affected by experience and knowledge in the field of finance – students that are studying economics had higher Financial Risk Tolerance score than students that were studying other subjects.</p><p> </p>

The statistics has shown that men and women have different investing strategies, where men tend to choose riskier investments and women lean towards less risky investments. The financial theory states that individuals are risk averse in general, and some prior studies have shown that women are more so than men. Moreover, financial knowledge and experience have been pointed out to be one of the factors affecting one’s financial risk tolerance. This paper researches these issues by addressing the following to questions: Are there any gender differences in Financial Risk Tolerance? Does knowledge and experience have impact on Financial Risk Tolerance? A literature search has been done and relevant theory has been gathered and review, which served as a base and a framework for conducting this study. A quantitative methodological study has been carried out by handing out questionnaires, based on a 13-item Financial Risk Tolerance scale developed by Grabble &amp; Lytton (1999). The target population was the Umeå University students. The size of the sample was 139. The findings of this paper confirm prior studies which state that women, in general, are less risk tolerant then men – female students scored lower on the Financial Risk Tolerance Score than male students. Furthermore, this study also shows that one’s Financial Risk Tolerance is affected by experience and knowledge in the field of finance – students that are studying economics had higher Financial Risk Tolerance score than students that were studying other subjects.

This dissertation investigates the latent but critical effects of risk attitude on competitive success in construction applying an evolutionary approach. The approach considers contractors as individual entities competing with each other for common job opportunities, and competition as an evolutionary process in the market. In construction, competitive bidding is the major mechanism of competition. Bidding itself is an important managerial function in a construction organization while it is risky since the actual cost of a job is unknown. Therefore, contractors' risk-taking in competition is an essential element in the construction business. Individuals may behave differently in competition depending on their own risk attitude which defines what risks can be accepted or not in an organization. Depending on the differences in risk-taking, the result of a competition varies. How contractors compete, that is, how they take risks in competition affects the competition among themselves. Also, contractors' performance is differentiated through competition to decide successful firms and unsuccessful firms. The current study investigates the effects of risk attitude, which is the latent basis for contractors' different behaviors in competition. The current investigation is unique in that it combines: 1) an evolutionary approach; 2) behavioral decision-making under uncertainty; 3) multi-level analyses from the individual to the aggregate; and 4) a long-term perspective on firms' success and life-cycles (birth, death, survival, growth, contraction, and market diversification). The developed evolutionary model simulates and analyzes competition among contractors in the competitive bidding environment. A new method is proposed to represent contractors' different risk-taking behaviors depending on their own risk attitude. The analysis accounts for contractors' differences in risk-taking, their performances through competition, and corresponding organizational changes in life-cycles at the individual level, and aggregate patterns evolving at the population level as resultants of competition over long time periods. The study finds that risk attitude is a latent but dominant competitive characteristic of contractors by identifying the critical effects of risk attitude on competitive success. The results provide new insights on competition and recommendations for contractors' competitive success, which are not available using conventional approaches.

This dissertation, which consists of three essays, studies online auctions both theoretically and empirically. The first essay studies a special online auction format used by eBay, “Buy-It- Now” (BIN) auctions, in which bidders are allowed to buy the item at a fixed BIN price set by the seller and end the auction immediately. I construct a two-stage model in which the BIN price is only available to one group of bidders. I find that bidders cutoff is lower in this model, which means, bidders are more likely to accept the BIN option, compared with the models assuming all bidders are offered the BIN. The results explain the high frequency of bidders accepting BIN price, and may also help explain the popularity of temporary BIN auctions in online auction sites, such as eBay, where BIN option is only offered to early bidders. In the second essay, I study how bidders’ risk attitude and time preference affect their behavior in Buy-It-Now auctions. I consider two cases, when both bidders enter the auction at the same time (homogenous bidders) thus BIN option is offered to both of them, and when two bidders enter the auction at two different stages (heterogenous bidders) thus the BIN option is only offered to the early bidder. Bidders’ optimal strategies are derived explicitly in both cases. In particular, given bidders’ risk attitude and time preference, the cutoff valuation, such that a bidder will accept BIN if his valuation is higher than the cutoff valuation and reject it otherwise, is calculated. I find that the cutoff valuation in the case of heterogenous bidders is lower than that in the case of homogenous bidders. The third essay focuses on the empirical modeling of the price processes of online auctions. I generalize the monotone series estimator to model the pooled price processes. Then I apply the model and the estimator to eBay auction data of a palm PDA. The results are shown to capture closely the overall pattern of observed price dynamics. In particular, early bidding, mid-auction draught, and sniping are well approximated by the estimated price curve.