14 January 2014We study the evolution of preferences of villagers living under the threat of natural hazards in a volcanic area (Mount Mer- api, Central Java). Between December 2010 and April 2011, shortly after a major eruption, the villagers (perceived) expo- sure changed dramatically. We ran incentivized experiments at the beginning and after this period in order to elicit villagersrisk preferences and time preferences. Our three main ndings are as follows: (1) there exists a signi cant negative correlation between risk-tolerance and impatience (before and after): individuals who are more risk-tolerant are less impatient; (2) most respondents exhibit a change in their risk preference and/or time preference after having been exposed to a higher level of threat; (3) there ex- ists a signi cant negative correlation between the erosion of risk tolerance and the erosion of patience: individuals who became less (more) risk-tolerant also became more (less) impatient.