Using data on identical and fraternal twins' complete financial portfolios, we decompose the crosssectional 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 Paper introduces a tractable, structural model of subjective beliefs. Forward-looking agents care about expected future utility flows, and hence have higher current felicity if they believe that better outcomes are more likely. On the other hand, biased expectations lead to poorer decisions...

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...

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...

This paper employs subjective stock market expectation responses from Health and Retirement Survey as a proxy for stock market optimism of American households. I first ask if individuals are inert in terms of forming their optimistic stock market views. Second I analyze the impact of optimism on...

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...

Recent research has shown that 'rich' households save at much higher rates than others (see Carroll (2000); Dynan Skinner and Zeldes (1996); Gentry and Hubbard (1998); Huggett (1996); Quadrini (1999)) This paper documents another large difference between the rich and the rest of the population:...

Using the 2015 and 2017 waves of the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we measured financial literacy and study its relationship to households' demand for digital finance. We found that a majority of households in the People's Republic of China possess limited financial literacy. The low...

This essay reviews the family of models that seek to provide aggregate risk based explanations for the empirically observed equity premium. Theories based on non-expected utility preference structures, limited financial market participation, model uncertainty and the small probability of...