IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/quantf/v10y2010i5p515-528.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial literacy and portfolio diversification

Author

Listed:
  • Margarida Abreu
  • Victor Mendes

Abstract

We use a survey of individual investors disclosed by the Portuguese Securities Commission (CMVM) in May 2005 to study the impact of investors' levels of financial literacy on portfolio diversification. We consider distinct aspects of financial literacy, and control for socioeconomic and behavioral differences among individual groups of investors. Our results suggest that investors' educational levels and their financial knowledge have a positive impact on investor diversification. The information sources used by retail investors to gather information on markets and financial products also have a significant impact on the number of different assets included in a portfolio.

Suggested Citation

  • Margarida Abreu & Victor Mendes, 2010. "Financial literacy and portfolio diversification," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(5), pages 515-528.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:quantf:v:10:y:2010:i:5:p:515-528
    DOI: 10.1080/14697680902878105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14697680902878105
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14697680902878105?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Richard H. Thaler & Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman & Alan Schwartz, 1997. "The Effect of Myopia and Loss Aversion on Risk Taking: An Experimental Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 647-661.
    2. 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.
    3. Carol C. Bertaut, 1998. "Stockholding Behavior Of U.S. Households: Evidence From The 1983-1989 Survey Of Consumer Finances," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 263-275, May.
    4. Brennan, Michael J. & Schwartz, Eduardo S. & Lagnado, Ronald, 1997. "Strategic asset allocation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(8-9), pages 1377-1403, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    7. Dougherty, Christopher, 2003. "Numeracy, literacy and earnings: evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 511-521, October.
    8. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    9. Brad M. Barber & Chip Heath & Terrance Odean, 2003. "Good Reasons Sell: Reason-Based Choice Among Group and Individual Investors in the Stock Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(12), pages 1636-1652, December.
    10. Harald Hau, 2001. "Location Matters: An Examination of Trading Profits," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1959-1983, October.
    11. John Y. Campbell & Luis M. Viceira, 1999. "Consumption and Portfolio Decisions when Expected Returns are Time Varying," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 433-495.
    12. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    13. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    14. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2001. "How Distance, Language, and Culture Influence Stockholdings and Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 1053-1073, June.
    15. Bradley, Michael G. & Grahamt, John W., 1988. "Education and asset composition," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 209-220, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Baltzer, Markus & Stolper, Oscar & Walter, Andreas, 2011. "Home-field advantage or a matter of ambiguity aversion? Local bias among German individual investors," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2011,23, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Bo Becker & Zoran Ivković & Scott Weisbenner, 2011. "Local Dividend Clienteles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(2), pages 655-683, April.
    5. Nicolas Coeurdacier & Hélène Rey, 2013. "Home Bias in Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 63-115, March.
    6. Green, T. Clifton & Jame, Russell, 2013. "Company name fluency, investor recognition, and firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 813-834.
    7. John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey & Hai Huang, 2009. "Investor Competence, Trading Frequency, and Home Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(7), pages 1094-1106, July.
    8. 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.
    9. Eduard Gaar & David Scherer & Dirk Schiereck, 2022. "The home bias and the local bias: A survey," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 21-57, February.
    10. Emre Kuvvet, 2019. "The impact of international bribery on U.S. household stock investments," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 43(2), pages 409-419, April.
    11. Charlotte Christiansen & Juanna Schröter Joensen & Jesper Rangvid, 2008. "Are Economists More Likely to Hold Stocks?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(3), pages 465-496.
    12. Branikas, Ioannis & Hong, Harrison & Xu, Jiangmin, 2020. "Location choice, portfolio choice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 74-94.
    13. Nerissa C. Brown & Han Stice & Roger M. White, 2015. "Mobile Communication and Local Information Flow: Evidence from Distracted Driving Laws," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 275-329, May.
    14. Vimal Balasubramaniam & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai & Benjamin Ranish, 2023. "Who Owns What? A Factor Model for Direct Stockholding," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1545-1591, June.
    15. Isaac Ehrlich & Jong Kook Shin & Yong Yin, 2011. "Private Information, Human Capital, and Optimal "Home Bias" in Financial Markets," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(3), pages 255-301.
    16. Zoran Ivkovi & Scott Weisbenner, 2007. "Information Diffusion Effects in Individual Investors' Common Stock Purchases: Covet Thy Neighbors' Investment Choices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1327-1357.
    17. Florentsen, Bjarne & Nielsson, Ulf & Raahauge, Peter & Rangvid, Jesper, 2020. "Turning local: Home-bias dynamics of relocating foreigners," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 436-452.
    18. Nicolas Coeurdacier & Hélène Rey, 2010. "Home bias in open economy financial macroeconomics," SciencePo Working papers hal-01069440, HAL.
    19. Tekçe, Bülent & Yılmaz, Neslihan & Bildik, Recep, 2016. "What factors affect behavioral biases? Evidence from Turkish individual stock investors," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 515-526.
    20. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g81p7j6b6 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.

    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:taf:quantf:v:10:y:2010:i:5:p:515-528. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RQUF20 .

    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.