Risk Aversion and Worker Sorting into Public Sector Employment

Research output: Working paperWorking papers

Authors

This research note uses two German data sets – the large-scale German Socio-Economic Panel and unique data from own student questionnaires – to analyse the relationship between risk aversion and the choice for public sector employment. Main results are: (1) more risk averse individuals sort into public sector employment, (2) the impact of career specific and unemployment risk attitudes is larger than the impact of general risk attitudes, and (3) risk taking is rewarded with higher wages in the private but not in the public sector.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationBonn
PublisherForschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit
Number of pages22
Publication statusPublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes