The relationship between unemployment and risk-aversion

"In this paper we use a direct measure of individual risk-aversion to examine the relationship between risk-aversion and unemployment. The traditional search model predicts that more risk-averse individuals have lower reservation wages and thus are less likely to be observed in unemployment. Our findings, however, do not support this prediction: on the contrary our data suggest that more risk-averse individuals are more likely to be unemployed"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.