Although gender differences in a technological world are receiving significant research attention, much of the research and practice has aimed at how society and education can impact the successes and retention of female computer science professionals—but the possibility of gender issues within software has received almost no attention. If gender issues exist with some types of software features, it is possible that accommodating them by changing these features can increase effectiveness, but only if we know what these issues are. In this paper, we empirically investigate gender differences for end users in the context of debugging spreadsheets. Our results uncover significant gender differences in self-efficacy and feature acceptance, with females exhibiting lower self-efficacy and lower feature acceptance. The results also show that these differences can significantly reduce females ’ effectiveness.

This paper provides empirical evidence on life-cycle patterns in the asset allocation of Swedish households. Data on household portfolio allocation are collected from the HINK surveys for the period 1982-1992, and portfolio shares of different asset categories are regressed on age, period, and cohort dummies as well as socio-economic and demographic variables. There are evident differences in the age profiles for the demand of different assets. The fraction of “risky ” financial assets follows a hump-shaped age profile, as does the share of total real assets. While the probability of ownership of “safe ” financial assets increases over life, the weight in the portfolio has a U-shaped age pattern. This is also true for the fraction of total financial assets. Furthermore, there are differences in the asset allocation of different birth cohorts; the portfolio weight of real assets is relatively higher for the “baby-boom ” generation, while younger generations are more prone to invest in “risky ” financial assets.

In this paper we relate individual risk attitude as elicited by binary lotteries and certainty equivalents to market behavior. By analyzing 26 independent markets with a total of 280 participants we show that binary lottery choices and certainty equivalents are poorly correlated. Only lottery choices are related to market behavior: the higher the degree of risk aversion the lower the observed market activity. Females are more risk averse than males according to binary lotteries, submit fewer o#ers and engage less often in trades.

Women are stereotyped as more risk averse than men. Empirical and experimental investigations seem to support the stereotype, yet they tackle different and often unrelated aspects. Reliable predictions on gender specific differences in risky choices are hardly possible since there is no common or consistent theoretical underpinning. To enable predictions, this paper tries to integrate gender aspects into five main models from decision theory. We can show that according to the model considered different sources for gender differences in risky choices appear relevant. This implies that the model choice has relevant implications for predictions of gender differences in risky choice. (JEL D81, J7) For valuable support the authors would like to thank Philipp Tingler, Samuel Rutz, and Katrin Spitze from ETH Zurich.

Individuals ’ preferences for risk and inequality are measured through experimental choices between hypothetical societies and lotteries. The median relative risk aversion, which is often seen to reflect social inequality aversion, is between 2 and 3. We also estimate the individual inequality aversion, reflecting individuals ’ willingness to pay for living in a more equal society. Left-wing voters and women are both more risk- and inequality averse than others. The model allows for non-monotonic SWFs, implying that welfare may decrease with an individual’s income at high income levels. This is illustrated in simulations based on the empirical results.

Swedish survey-evidence indicates that variables reflecting self-interest are important in explaining people’s preferred speed limits, and that political preferences adapt to technological development. Drivers of cars that are newer (and hence safer), bigger, and with better high-speed characteristics, prefer higher speed limits, as do those who believe they drive better than average, whereas elderly people prefer lower limits. Furthermore, people report that they themselves vote more sociotropically than they believe others to vote, on average. Self-serving biases are proposed as a bridge between subjectively perceived expressive and sociotropic voting behavior, versus objectively self-interested voting behavior.

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