This paper investigates whether false confidence, as characterized by a high level of personal mastery and a low level of intelligence (IQ), results in frequent investor trading and subsequent investor wealth erosion across time. Using the National Longitudinal Survey (NLSY79), change in wealth...

We introduce an equilibrium model of the stock market participation rate with a social network. We study how information sharing through a network affects the decision to enter the stock market and how social connectivity interacts with individual income and financial literacy to create...

This paper examines the effect of broadband Internet on household stock market participation. By exploiting the expansion of broadband in the U.S. from 1999 to 2008, we find that the availability of broadband in a household’s zip code significantly increases the likelihood of stockholding and...

We estimate the life-cycle profile of stock market participation and risky portfolio share. We address the classical identification problem by running the estimations in first differences, which allows us to estimate the age profiles without making any assumptions on time or cohort effects. We...

Using micro household survey data from China, this study finds that women are less likely to participate in the stock market than men. This gender pattern in market participation rates holds when we control for household features, characteristics of both spouses, and their interactions and...

We study the effects of broadband internet use on the investment decisions of individual investors. A public program in Norway provides plausibly exogenous variation in internet use. Our instrumental variables estimates show that internet use causes a substantial increase in stock market...

We use a natural experiment to investigate the impact of participation constraints on individuals' decisions to invest in the stock market. Unexpected inheritance due to sudden deaths results in exogenous variation in financial wealth and allows us to examine whether fixed entry and ongoing...

Using a novel dataset with over 100,000 actual payout decisions, we investigate the nature of the strong negative relationship between recent stock returns and the annuitization of retirement savings. After controlling for several standard explanations (e.g., wealth effects), we present evidence...

I document a strong negative relationship between stock market returns and annuitization. Using a novel dataset with more than 103,000 actual payout decisions, I find that positive stock market returns decrease the likelihood of employees choosing an annuity over a lump sum, and vice versa. More...

I document a strong negative relationship between stock market returns and annuitization. Using a novel dataset with more than 103,000 actual payout decisions, I find that positive stock market returns decrease the likelihood of employees choosing an annuity over a lump sum, and vice versa. More...