Abstract:

Mental accounting is a new research area in the discipline of behavioral economics focused on (ir)rational economic decision-making and risk aversion. Its growing relevance in the scientific community around the world and lack of related research in Croatia gave motivation for this paper. Therefore, this paper gave a contribution to Croatian scientific literature by summarising recent relevant foreign papers. Furthermore, this paper aimed to identify differences in the approach to and use of mental accounting among the different subgroups of respondents of the empirical research carried out in Croatia in early 2018. Two hundred and ninety (290) persons were approached. The survey sample comprised mainly of students and young employed individuals. In this paper, different statistical methods (t-test, Chi-square) were applied using statistical software SPSS to identify relationships between risk attitude and economic decision in different situations where respondents could choose between a few options. The risk attitude was analyzed in comparison with respondents’ preferences in terms of handling their money in gain or loss situations. There were eight different situations, and the statistically significant differences have been identified in three occasions. The results of the survey are mostly consistent with previous findings.