The intergenerational transmission of risk attitudes: Evidence from Burkina Faso

This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of risk attitudes in the context of a low income country with a focus on rural-urban and gender differences. Our empirical analysis is based on a household survey completed in Burkina Faso in 2014 which asks family members about their willingness to take risk in various domains. We find a positive correlation between parental and child risk attitudes, which is higher for risk in driving and risk in general than for risk in finance. For risk in driving and risk in general, the parent-child correlation is lower in rural area than in urban area. Also, we evidence gender-specific effects of parental risk attitudes. The intergenerational correlation in risk attitudes is higher for daughters than for sons, the father-daughter correlation is lower than the father-son correlation and the mother-daughter correlation is higher than the mother-son correlation.