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Is Monetary Policy Gender Neutral? Evidence from the Stock Market

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  • Caterina Forti Grazzini
  • Chi Hyun Kim

Abstract

We use US household survey data from 2001-2017 to investigate whether monetary policy has heterogeneous effects on women's and men's financial portfolio decisions by analyzing their equity investment. On the one hand, monetary policy significantly affects the entry decisions of women, but not of men: after a contractionary shock, the probability of women entering the stock market decreases. On the other hand, monetary policy is gender-neutral for stock market participants: there are no significant differences in exit or in portfolio rebalancing decisions between women and men. Our results suggest that monetary policy does not have a heterogeneous effect on portfolio decisions across genders once women participate in the stock market.

Suggested Citation

  • Caterina Forti Grazzini & Chi Hyun Kim, 2020. "Is Monetary Policy Gender Neutral? Evidence from the Stock Market," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1841, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1841
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary policy; gender; stock market participation; portfolio choices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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