Risk attitudes in company boardrooms in a developing country

Abstract

We test risk attitude and risk propensity of executive and non-executive directors of almost all (read: 10) companies listed at the Suriname Stock Exchange. This stock exchange associates with an emerging market, which currently seems to be at its initial stage. With a personalized survey we collect data for 13 members in the board room. The sample size is small as the population is small, but still we can test various hypotheses that are put forward in the literature. Our main finding is that the differences between risk attitudes of board members of companies in a developing country do not differ tremendously from those of board members in developed countries.