Immigrants from countries with more effective institutions are more likely than other immigrants to have a relationship with a bank and to use formal financial markets more extensively. The evidence that a country's institutional environment shapes beliefs--and by extension the use of financial...

Because financial transactions are important for wealth accumulation, and rely on trust and confidence in institutions, the financial market behavior of immigrants can provide important insights into the assimilation process. Compared to the native-born, immigrants are less likely to own savings...

We show that individuals who have experienced a systemic banking crisis are 11 percentage points less likely to use banks in the U.S. than otherwise similar individuals who emigrated from the same country but did not live through a crisis. This finding is robust to controlling for exposure to...