We study an investment experiment conducted with a representative sample of German households. Respondents invest in a safe asset and a risky asset whose return is tied to the German stock market. Experimental investments correlate with beliefs about stock market returns and exhibit desirable...

The global trend towards tighten regulation of financial institutions and the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) may hasten the unwinding of cross-shareholdings in Japan, and there are signs that this is already happening. Finding buyers for such shares is therefore a...

This study found that people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) displayed financial risk aversion that varied across the seasons as a function of seasonally changing affect. The SAD-sufferers had significantly stronger preferences for safe choices during the winter than...

Using data on identical and fraternal twins' complete financial portfolios, we decompose the cross-sectional variation in investor behavior. We find that a genetic factor explains about one third of the variance in stock market participation and asset allocation. Family environment has an effect...

This research finds distinct life cycle patterns of equity participation by gender. The significant factors associated with equity participation also vary notably by gender and age. Women exhibit greater variability in both participation levels and significant factors. Family circumstances are...

We find that several factors explain an individual investor's style, i.e., the value versus growth orientation of the investor's stock portfolio. First, we find that an investor's style has a biological basis and is partially ingrained in an investor from birth. Second, we show that an...

This paper provides a short overview of the stylized facts of household finance that relate to investors and their investment decisions. Emphasis is given to mistakes made by individuals, although evidence suggests all categories of market participants are prone to the same biases. The paper...

Using detailed data of individual investors, this study shows that, on average, individuals invest more in firms with clear and concise financial disclosures. The results indicate this relation is less pronounced for high frequency trading and financially-literate individuals. The study also...

We relate time-varying aggregate ambiguity (V-VSTOXX) to individual investor trading. We use the trading records of more than 100,000 individual investors from a large German online brokerage from March 2010 to December 2015. We find that an increase in ambiguity is associated with increased...

Formal dynamic analyses of household portfolio choice in the literature focus on holdings of equity and a risk-free asset or bonds of different maturities, neglecting the interdependence of the decisions to invest in equity, short-term and longterm bonds made by households. Data from the Survey...