To pay or not to pay: Measuring risk preferences in lab and field

Measuring risk preferences in the field is critical for policy, however, it can be costly. For instance, the commonly used measure of Holt and Laury (2002) relies on a dozen of lottery choices and payments which makes it time-consuming and costly. We propose a short version of the Holt and Laury (2002) which produces in the lab (Spain) the same results as the long HL. Using the short HL in the field (Honduras and Nigeria), we observe that paying or not for the measurement of risk preferences produces the same findings using a faster and cheaper measure.