IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/quaeco/v50y2010i1p90-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of capital wealth on optimal diversification: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

Author

Listed:
  • Yunker, James A.
  • Melkumian, Alla A.

Abstract

It is well known that the wealthier the household, the larger tends to be the proportion of its total capital portfolio allocated to publicly traded stock, and the larger tends to be the number of individual stock issues included in its portfolio. Using the "homogeneous securities" case of a mean-variance model originally proposed by Michael Brennan, explicit functional forms are obtained for both the optimal proportion of the portfolio allocated to stocks and the optimal number of individual stock issues in the portfolio. An empirical evaluation of these theoretical results, using a dataset derived from the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances, lends substantial support to the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Yunker, James A. & Melkumian, Alla A., 2010. "The effect of capital wealth on optimal diversification: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 90-98, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:50:y:2010:i:1:p:90-98
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062-9769(09)00088-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Stevenson, 2001. "Bayes-Stein Estimators and International Real Estate Asset Allocation," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 21(1/2), pages 89-104.
    2. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides, 2003. "Portfolio Choice With Internal Habit Formation: A Life-Cycle Model With Uninsurable Labor Income Risk," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(4), pages 729-766, October.
    3. Bergstresser, Daniel & Poterba, James, 2004. "Asset allocation and asset location: household evidence from the survey of consumer finances," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1893-1915, August.
    4. Garlappi, Lorenzo & Huang, Jennifer, 2006. "Are stocks desirable in tax-deferred accounts?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(12), pages 2257-2283, December.
    5. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 2005. "Awareness and Stock Market Participation," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(4), pages 537-567.
    6. Markku Kaustia & Samuli Knüpfer, 2008. "Do Investors Overweight Personal Experience? Evidence from IPO Subscriptions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2679-2702, December.
    7. King, Mervyn A. & Leape, Jonathan I., 1998. "Wealth and portfolio composition: Theory and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 155-193, June.
    8. Rob Alessie & Stefan Hochguertel & Arthur van Soest, 2004. "Ownership of Stocks and Mutual Funds: A Panel Data Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 783-796, August.
    9. Joao F. Cocco, 2005. "Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Housing," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 535-567.
    10. Arjan B. Berkelaar & Roy Kouwenberg & Thierry Post, 2004. "Optimal Portfolio Choice under Loss Aversion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 973-987, November.
    11. Gong, Peichen & Löfgren, Karl Gustaf, 2007. "Market and welfare implications of the reservation price strategy for forest harvest decisions," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 217-243, November.
    12. William N. Goetzmann & Alok Kumar, 2008. "Equity Portfolio Diversification," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(3), pages 433-463.
    13. Pelizzon, Loriana & Weber, Guglielmo, 2008. "Are Household Portfolios Efficient? an Analysis Conditional on Housing," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 401-431, June.
    14. Edward Castronova & Paul Hagstrom, 2004. "The Demand for Credit Cards: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(2), pages 304-318, April.
    15. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel, 2008. "Do Wealth Fluctuations Generate Time-Varying Risk Aversion? Micro-evidence on Individuals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 713-736, June.
    16. Michael Ben-Gad, 2004. "The Welfare Effects of the Reagan Deficits: A Portfolio Choice Approach," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(3), pages 441-454, July.
    17. Massimo Massa & Andrei Simonov, 2006. "Hedging, Familiarity and Portfolio Choice," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 633-685.
    18. Harry Markowitz, 1952. "Portfolio Selection," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 7(1), pages 77-91, March.
    19. John Lintner, 1965. "Security Prices, Risk, And Maximal Gains From Diversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 587-615, December.
    20. Christopher D. Carroll, 2000. "STATA code for Portfolios of the Rich," QM&RBC Codes 41, Quantitative Macroeconomics & Real Business Cycles.
    21. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    22. Kelly, Morgan, 1995. "All their eggs in one basket: Portfolio diversification of US households," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 87-96, June.
    23. Anil Bera & Sung Park, 2008. "Optimal Portfolio Diversification Using the Maximum Entropy Principle," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4-6), pages 484-512.
    24. Yair Listokin, 2008. "Interpreting Empirical Estimates of the Effect of Corporate Governance," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 10(1), pages 90-109.
    25. Berkowitz, Michael K. & Qiu, Jiaping, 2006. "A further look at household portfolio choice and health status," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1201-1217, April.
    26. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    27. Wolff, Edward N, 1992. "Changing Inequality of Wealth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 552-558, May.
    28. Heath Windcliff & Phelim Boyle, 2004. "The 1/ Pension Investment Puzzle," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 32-45.
    29. Poterba, James M. & Samwick, Andrew A., 2003. "Taxation and household portfolio composition: US evidence from the 1980s and 1990s," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 5-38, January.
    30. Samuelson, Paul A., 1967. "General Proof that Diversification Pays*," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, March.
    31. William J. Baumol, 1963. "An Expected Gain-Confidence Limit Criterion for Portfolio Selection," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(1), pages 174-182, October.
    32. Nancy Ammon Jianakoplos & Alexandra Bernasek, 2006. "Financial Risk Taking by Age and Birth Cohort," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 981-1001, April.
    33. Brennan, M. J., 1975. "The Optimal Number of Securities in a Risky Asset Portfolio When There Are Fixed Costs of Transacting: Theory and Some Empirical Results," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 483-496, September.
    34. Annette Vissing-Jørgensen & Orazio P. Attanasio, 2003. "Stock-Market Participation, Intertemporal Substitution, and Risk-Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 383-391, May.
    35. Tuukka Saarimaa, 2008. "Owner-Occupied Housing and Demand for Risky Financial Assets: Some Finnish Evidence," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 22-38, Spring.
    36. Kole, Erik & Koedijk, Kees & Verbeek, Marno, 2006. "Portfolio implications of systemic crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 2347-2369, August.
    37. Valery Polkovnichenko, 2005. "Household Portfolio Diversification: A Case for Rank-Dependent Preferences," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1467-1502.
    38. Juan Carlos Hatchondo, 2008. "Asymmetric Information And The Lack Of Portfolio Diversification," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1297-1330, November.
    39. Dale L. Domian & David A. Louton & Marie D. Racine, 2007. "Diversification in Portfolios of Individual Stocks: 100 Stocks Are Not Enough," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 42(4), pages 557-570, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kenneth David Strang, 2012. "Man versus math: Behaviorist exploration of post-crisis non-banking asset management," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(5), pages 348-367, October.
    2. Basnet, Hem C. & Donou-Adonsou, Ficawoyi, 2016. "Internet, consumer spending, and credit card balance: Evidence from US consumers," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 11-22.
    3. Barasinska, Nataliya & Schäfer, Dorothea & Stephan, Andreas, 2012. "Individual risk attitudes and the composition of financial portfolios: Evidence from German household portfolios," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 1-14.
    4. Hem C. Basnet & Ficawoyi Donou‐Adonsou, 2016. "Internet, consumer spending, and credit card balance: Evidence from US consumers," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 11-22, September.
    5. Yunker James A., 2013. "The Basic Income Guarantee: A General Equilibrium Evaluation," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 203-233, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    2. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    3. Lu, Xiaomeng & Guo, Jiaojiao & Gan, Li, 2020. "International comparison of household asset allocation: Micro-evidence from cross-country comparisons," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    4. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    5. Abrahamson, Martin, 2018. "Birds of a feather flock together: A study of new shareholders and Swedish IPOs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 1-17.
    6. Raslan Alzuabi & Sarah Brown & Mark N. Harris & Karl Taylor, 2024. "Modelling the composition of household portfolios: A latent class approach," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 243-275, February.
    7. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2007. "Down or Out: Assessing the Welfare Costs of Household Investment Mistakes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 707-747, October.
    8. Briggs, Joseph & Cesarini, David & Lindqvist, Erik & Östling, Robert, 2021. "Windfall gains and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 57-83.
    9. Jiang, Julia & Liu, Jun & Tian, Weidong & Zeng, Xudong, 2022. "Portfolio concentration, portfolio inertia, and ambiguous correlation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    10. Raffaele Miniaci & Sergio Pastorello, 2010. "Mean-variance econometric analysis of household portfolios," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 481-504.
    11. Marie Brière & Bastien Drut & Valérie Mignon & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2013. "Is the Market Portfolio Efficient? A New Test of Mean-Variance Efficiency when all Assets are Risky," Finance, Presses universitaires de Grenoble, vol. 34(1), pages 7-41.
    12. Khorunzhina, Natalia, 2013. "Structural estimation of stock market participation costs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 2928-2942.
    13. Phelim Boyle & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal & Tan Wang, 2012. "Keynes Meets Markowitz: The Trade-Off Between Familiarity and Diversification," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 253-272, February.
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/9297 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Chollete, Lorán & de la Peña, Victor & Lu, Ching-Chih, 2011. "International diversification: A copula approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 403-417, February.
    16. Chollete, Loran & Ning, Cathy, 2010. "Asymmetric Dependence in US Financial Risk Factors?," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2011/2, University of Stavanger.
    17. Luik, Marc-André & Berlemann, Michael, 2014. "Institutional Reform and Depositors’ Portfolio Choice: Evidence from Censored Quantile Regressions," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100291, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Daniel Barth, 2018. "The Costs and Beliefs Implied by Direct Stock Ownership," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5263-5288, November.
    19. Barasinska, Nataliya & Schäfer, Dorothea & Stephan, Andreas, 2012. "Individual Risk Attitudes and the Composition of Financial Portfolios: Evidence from German Household Portfolios," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 52(1), pages 1-14.
    20. D'Hondt, Catherine & Elhichou Elmaya, Younes & Petitjean, Mikael, 2020. "Retail Investing in Passive Exchange Traded Funds," LIDAM Discussion Papers LFIN 2020013, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    21. Chollete, Lorán & de la Peña, Victor & Lu, Ching-Chih, 2012. "International diversification: An extreme value approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 871-885.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:50:y:2010:i:1:p:90-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620167 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.