Business Commons^™

Cultural Influnces On Risk Tolerance And Portfolio Creation, Mark K. Pyles, Yongping Li, Shifang Wu, Steven D. Dolvin

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

We extend existing research that examines the impact of culture on risk tolerance. Using surveys completed by Chinese and American students, we find, consistent with previous studies, that Chinese students perceive themselves as more risk tolerant. However, we find that Chinese students are less consistent in matching their perceived tolerance levels with actual scores from a standard risk tolerance assessment. Further, we also examine mock portfolios created by the respondents and find no evidence that Chinese students create portfolios that are riskier than their American counterparts. Our findings suggest that differences in risk tolerance are at least partially a product …