Do Swedish students differ from each other and the general population in terms of patience and risk taking?

Abstract

Do student samples provide insights that are generalizable to the general public? Could the results be affected by what study area or study year the students are in? Using student samples is an ongoing debate in economic research and we look at this problem in terms of time and risk preferences. Using survey data on students and non-students in Sweden, we study if there are any differences in patience and risk taking between the two samples. We also investigate whether time and risk preferences differ between genders. In addition, we analyze whether what kind of students that are used affects the results which, to the best of our knowledge, has never been studied before. We find no significant differences in time/risk preferences between the two samples and a gender difference is only found in the general sample. Our most important results are that study area and years at university have a significant effect on time and risk preferences which indicates that it is important to consider what type of students are used as subjects.