Aging and financial risk taking: A meta-analysis

Decades of research have assumed the stability of risk preferences across domains and ages. However, recent evidence has shown that it might not be the case since variations in the level of risks taken are, in fact, observable. Economics and Psychology literature investigated such issues, providing mixed evidence regarding age changes. This paper provides the first exhaustive meta-analytical review of the economic and psychology literature results regarding the association between aging and financial risk attitudes. We find differences in the effect mainly due to the methods used for measuring risk preferences. In particular, we find that the positive association between risk aversion and age is verified for survey data and lotteries, while psychological tasks underline the role played by the learning process and, ultimately, that cognitive abilities and health status may affect preferences. The meta-regression on effect sizes derived from studies based on surveys shows that cognitive abilities and healthstatus explain a significant part of the heterogeneity of this sample of studies.