In this study, for verifying the assumption of independence among risk, time and social preferences in decision theory, a laboratory experiment was conducted. Our experiment shows that interdependence among these preferences, especially between risk and time preferences and between risk and social preferences. Several structural models for a generalized utility functions featuring interdependence among risk, time, and social preferences as well as cognitive ability are estimated and compared. The estimation result reveals that one of such models better explains the choice regularities found in the experiment.
View full abstract