Risk Preferences and the Decision to Flee Conflict

Ceriani, Lidia ; Verme, Paolo

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: CONFLICT;    MIGRATION;    EXPECTED UTILITY;    FORCED DISPLACEMENT;    RISK TOLERANCE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8376
RP-ID  :  WPS8376

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Despite the growing numbers of forciblydisplaced persons worldwide, many people living underconflict choose not to flee. Individuals face two lotteries-- staying or leaving -- characterized by two distributionsof potential outcomes. This paper proposes to model thechoice between these two lotteries using quantilemaximization as opposed to expected utility theory. Thepaper posits that risk-averse individuals aim at minimizinglosses by choosing the lottery with the best outcome at thelower end of the distribution, whereas risk-tolerantindividuals aim at maximizing gains by choosing the lotterywith the best outcome at the higher end of the distribution.Using a rich set of household and conflict panel data fromNigeria, the paper finds that risk-tolerant individuals havea significant preference for staying and risk-averseindividuals have a significant preference for fleeing, inline with the predictions of the quantile maximizationmodel. These findings are contrary to findings on economicmigrants, and call for separate policies toward economic andforced migrants.