Individuals' aversion to risk and inequality, and their concern for relative standing, are measured through experimental choices between hypothetical societies. It is found that, on average, individuals are both fairly inequality-averse and have a strong concern for relative income. The results are used to illustrate welfare consequences based on a utilitarian SWF and a modified CRRA utility function. It is shown that the social marginal utility of income may then become negative, even at income levels that are far from extreme.

Individuals' preferences for risk and inequality are measured through choices between imagined societies and lotteries. The median relative risk aversion, which is often seen to reflect social inequality aversion, is between 2 and 3. Most people are also found to be individually inequality-averse, reflecting a 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, which is illustrated in simulations based on the empirical results.

This paper reports results from an economic experiment where respondents are asked to make choices between risky outcomes for themselves and others. In addition, we elicit information about the respondents' perception of others risk preferences. We investigate whether subjects' own risk preferences and gender stereotypes are reflected in the prediction they make for the risk preferences of others and the way this occurs. We find no significant difference in risk preferences between men and women in the experiment. However, both men and women perceive women to be more risk averse than men. When predicting other people's risk preferences, the respondents tend to use a combination of their own risk preferences and stereotypes. Moreover, when making risky choices for others, the respondents generally use a combination of their own risk preferences and their average predicted risk preference of the targeted group.

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The purpose of this study is to compare value of statistical life (VSL) estimates for traffic, drowning and fire accidents. Using a choice experiment in a mail survey of 5000 Swedish respondents we estimated the willingness to pay for risk reductions in the three accidents. In the experiment respondents were asked in a series of questions, whether they would choose risk reducing investments where type of accident, cost of the investment, the risk reduction acquired, and the baseline risk varied between questions. The VSLs for fire and drowning accidents were found to be about 1/3 lower than that for traffic accidents. Although respondents worry more about traffic accidents, this alone cannot explain the difference in VSL estimates. The difference between fire and drowning accidents was not found to be statistically significant.