LAUSR

ABSTRACT Due to regulatory requirements, assessing investors' attitude toward financial risks is becoming increasingly important for advisors. To address this, the authors aimed to develop a risk attitude questionnaire, based on existing instruments, which fulfills both regulatory and scientific criteria. They conducted a survey on real investors and linked the survey data to actual portfolio data to test the validity of the instrument. The risk attitude index the authors developed uses only 6 easy-to-understand items, is reliable (Cronbach's α = 0.88), and explains substantial amounts of variance (R2 = 0.40) in the investors' behavior. It therefore fulfills regulatory and scientific criteria.