We study the relation between cognitive ability and the decision to invest in stocks using the recent Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The survey has detailed data on wealth and portfolio composition of individuals aged 50+ in 11 European countries and three indicators...

The diversity in the current degree of financial development across the EU can be a great opportunity at a time where this area is poised to become increasingly financially integrated. Integration should accelerate the development of the most backward financial markets, and allow companies from...

We review savings trends in Italy, summarizing available empirical evidence on Italians’ motives to save, relying on macroeconomic indicators as well as on data drawn from the Bank of Italy’s Survey of Household Income and Wealth from 1984 to 2004. The macroeconomic data indicate that...

Recent models with liquidity constraints and impatience emphasize that consumers use savings to buffer income fluctuations. When wealth is below an optimal target, consumers try to increase their buffer stock of wealth by saving more, while, if wealth is above target, they increase consumption....

We estimate the effect of pension reforms on households' expectations and wealth accumulation decisions. We rely on self-reported expectations to measure perceived social security benefits and to a series of pension reforms as a source of exogenous variations in pension wealth. Two parameters...

We estimate the effect of taxes on intergenerational transfers exploiting a sequence of Italian reforms culminating with the abolishment of transfer taxes. We use the 1993-2006 Survey of Household Income and Wealth, which has data on real estate transfers received and information on potential...

We estimate the portfolio effect of changes in social security wealth exploiting a decade of Italian pension reforms as a source of exogenous variation. The Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth records detailed portfolio data and elicits expectations of retirement outcomes, thus...

This paper provides basic statistics on household total wealth, financial assets, and financial assets composition of the elderly as key indicators of the well-being and quality of life of the elderly. Median total wealth varies much less than median financial wealth across countries. As for...

The association between health outcomes and education – the health-education gradient - is widely documented but little is known about its source. Using microeconomic data on a sample of individuals aged 50+ in eight European countries, we find that education and cognitive skills (such as...

We provide evidence that the quality of health care affects health outcomes, exploiting the substantial variability in the quality of the Italian public health service. The data are drawn from the 2001 Survey of Health, Aging and Wealth (SHAW), a joint venture of the Universities of Padua,...