Market Participation and Dividend Clienteles

Asset allocation and market participation are intimately related investment decisions. Studies of dividend clienteles often attribute the positive relation between age and dividends to lack of self-control, but consumers with self-control problems are precisely those less likely to hold securities. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX), I model market participation and dividend preferences jointly and find evidence of self-selection bias in traditional regressions linking dividend preferences to investors' demographics. The positive relation between dividends and age is likely due to life-cycle considerations rather than to lack of self-control.