We use two data sets, one from a large brokerage and another from a major bank, to ask: (i) whether financial advisors tend to be matched with poorer, uninformed investors or with richer, experienced but presumably busy investors; (ii) how advised accounts actually perform relative to...

Many argue that the primary function of banks is to provide cheap credit, and to this effect advocate strict protection of creditor rights. But banks serve another important function: through project screening, they can improve the allocation of capital across projects. In this paper we show...

We study a model of financial advice where investors rely on a financial expert (the advisor) to make their asset allocation choices. There is only one source of risk and the advisor is privately informed about the volatility of the return of the risky asset. Moreover, the advisor’s...

This paper provides a joint analysis of household stockholding participation, stock location among stockholding modes, and participation spillovers, using data from the US Survey of Consumer Finances. Our multivariate choice model matches observed participation rates, conditional and...

We use cross-country micro-data and counterfactual methods to document international differences in ownership and holdings of stocks, private businesses, homes, and mortgages among older households in thirteen countries. We decompose these differences into two parts, related to population...

We investigate, using the 2002 US Health and Retirement Study, the factors influencing individuals’ insecurity and expectations about terrorism, and study the effects these last have on households’ portfolio choices and spending patterns. We find that females, the religiously devout, those...

We investigate US households’ direct investment in stocks, bonds and liquid accounts and their foreign counterparts, in order to identify the different participation hurdles affecting asset investment domestically and overseas. To this end, we estimate a trivariate probit model with three...

Using data from the US Health and Retirement Study, we study the causal effect of increased health insurance coverage through Medicare and the associated reduction in health-related background risk on financial risk-taking. Given the onset of Medicare at age 65, we identify our effect of...

Many studies show that most people are not financially literate and are unfamiliar with even the most basic economic concepts. However, the evidence on the determinants of economic literacy is scant. This paper uses international panel data on 55 countries, merging indicators of economic...

In this paper we focus on poor financial literacy as one potential factor explaining lack of portfolio diversification. We use the 2007 Unicredit Customers’ Survey, which has indicators of portfolio choice, financial literacy and many demographic characteristics of investors. We first propose...