Using a large representative sample of Indian retail equity investors, many of them new to the stock market, we show that recent investment experiences affect portfolio composition. Because investors are imperfectly diversified, cross-sectional variation in their investment experiences allows us...

Household financial decisions are complex, interdependent, and heterogeneous, and central to the functioning of the financial system. We present an overview of the rapidly expanding literature on household finance (with some important exceptions) and suggest directions for future research. We...

We study a unique field experiment in India in which 1.5 million stock investors face lotteries for the random allocation of shares. We find that the winners of these randomly assigned initial public offering (IPO) lottery shares are significantly more likely to hold them than lottery losers 1,...

This article reviews the literature on international comparative household finance. It presents summary statistics on household balance sheets for 13 developed countries and uses these statistics to discuss common features and contrasts across countries. It then discusses retirement savings,...

This paper reviews the literature on international comparative household finance. The paper presents summary statistics on household balance sheets for 13 developed countries, and uses these statistics to discuss common features and contrasts across countries. The paper then discusses retirement...

We study a natural experiment in which 1.5 million investors participate in allocation lotteries for Indian IPO stocks. Investors who win the lottery and obtain IPO stocks that rise in value increase portfolio trading volume in non-IPO stocks relative to lottery losers; the effects are negative...