The Impact of Exposure to Political Violence on Risk and Ambiguity Attitudes

Arzu Kibris will present her paper titled "The Impact of Exposure to Political Violence on Risk and Ambiguity Attitudes" (joint work with Neslihan Uler).

Abstract of the paper
We conduct an incentive compatible field experiment with a large representative sample to study how exposure to political violence in a civil conflict context affects risk and ambiguity preferences of individuals. We identify random exposure to violence by relying on a natural experiment in Turkey created by the military institutions and the long running civil conflict in the country. We find that while being exposed to the conflict environment induces individuals to become more risk-seeking, having traumatic direct experiences in that environment creates the opposite effect and renders individuals extremely risk averse. Such individuals also become more averse to ambiguity. Our results indicate that the type and time of exposure should be considered in determining the overall effects.

Chair: Subhasish Chowdhury, Co-Chair: Kai A. Konrad