Does revolution change risk attitudes? Evidence from Burkina Faso

Abstract A popular uprising in 2014, led to a revolution that overthrew the sitting President of Burkina Faso. We investigate if individuals' risk attitudes changed due to this revolution. We examine this impact by the main determinants of risk attitudes: gender, age and level of education. The analysis is based on unique panel survey data, allowing us to track the changes in the risk attitudes of the same individuals before, during and after the revolution. Our results suggest that individuals become risk averse during the revolution but return back to their pre‐revolution risk attitudes, with a slight increase in their risk attitudes, after the revolution is over.