Sesgo de aversión al riesgo y su relación con las decisiones financieras, un análisis desde las características demográficas de los emprendedores sociales

Abstract

The present study examines the level of risk aversion and its relationship with the financial and investment decisions of social entrepreneurs in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador, taking into account demographic variables such as age, education level, and gender. The research aims to understand the financial behavior of social entrepreneurs in uncertain contexts, providing empirical evidence in the field of behavioral finance. Furthermore, it characterizes the profile of the social entrepreneur based on their level of risk tolerance, identifying whether their financial decisions are conservative, moderate, or risky, depending on their perception of expected profitability. The research stems from the project "Financial Decisions in Social Entrepreneurs: A Behavioral Finance Approach," which employs surveys with closed-ended questions featuring different evaluations of the social entrepreneur's decisions related to behavioral bias, emotional, psychological, and demographic aspects. The econometric model used in the study is based on Multivariate Statistical techniques, allowing for the analysis of dependency or causality relationships among observable variables through the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings show that social entrepreneurs in the Cuenca canton make financial and investment decisions influenced by psychological and behavioral factors such as status quo bias, locus of control, overconfidence, and education level. Optimism bias and the demographic variables of age and gender did not show statistical significance.