IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgif/558.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stockholding behavior of U.S. households: evidence from the 1983-89 Survey of Consumer Finances

Author

Abstract

Most households persistently invest in riskless assets but not stocks, and may do so because they perceive the information required for market participation to be costly relative to expected benefits. In a CCAPM, increased risk aversion, income risk, and lower resources reduce the information expense sufficient to deter stockholding. Bivariate probit analysis using the 1983-89 Survey of Consumer Finances shows that households with lower risk aversion, higher education, and greater wealth who were nonstockholders in 1983 had an increased conditional probability of entering by 1989, while 1983 stockholders with lower resources, more limited education, and greater risk aversion were more likely to be nonstockholders by 1989.

Suggested Citation

  • Carol C. Bertaut, 1996. "Stockholding behavior of U.S. households: evidence from the 1983-89 Survey of Consumer Finances," International Finance Discussion Papers 558, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgif:558
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/1996/558/default.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/1996/558/ifdp558.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mervyn A. King & Jonathan I. Leape, 1987. "Asset Accumulation, Information, and the Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 2392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Andrew B. Abel, 1991. "The equity premium puzzle," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Sep, pages 3-14.
    3. Slemrod,Joel, 1997. "Tax Progressivity and Income Inequality," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521587761, January.
    4. Yaari, Menahem E, 1987. "The Dual Theory of Choice under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 95-115, January.
    5. Epstein, Larry G. & Zin, Stanley E., 1990. "'First-order' risk aversion and the equity premium puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 387-407, December.
    6. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1991. "The consumption of stockholders and nonstockholders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 97-112, March.
    7. Hubbard, R Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1995. "Precautionary Saving and Social Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 360-399, April.
    8. Michael Haliassos & Andrew B. Lyon, 1993. "Progressivity of Capital Gains Taxation with Optimal Portfolio Selection," NBER Working Papers 4253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Aiyagari, S. Rao & Gertler, Mark, 1991. "Asset returns with transactions costs and uninsured individual risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 311-331, June.
    10. Arthur B. Kennickell & Martha Starr-McCluer & Annika E. Sunden, "undated". "Saving and Financial Planning: Some Findings from a Focus Group," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1996-01, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), revised 04 Dec 2019.
    11. Cox, Donald & Jappelli, Tullio, 1993. "The Effect of Borrowing Constraints on Consumer Liabilities," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 25(2), pages 197-213, May.
    12. James M. Poterba & Andrew A. Samwick, 1995. "Stock Ownership Patterns, Stock Market Fluctuations, and Consumption," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 295-372.
    13. Bertaut, Carol C. & Haliassos, Michael, 1997. "Precautionary portfolio behavior from a life-cycle perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(8-9), pages 1511-1542, June.
    14. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    15. Aiyagari, S. Rao & Gertler, Mark, 1991. "Asset returns with transactions costs and uninsured individual risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 311-331, June.
    16. repec:bla:scandj:v:92:y:1990:i:1:p:47-64 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Newey, Whitney K., 1987. "Efficient estimation of limited dependent variable models with endogenous explanatory variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 231-250, November.
    18. Segal, Uzi & Spivak, Avia, 1990. "First order versus second order risk aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 111-125, June.
    19. Haliassos, Michael & Bertaut, Carol C, 1995. "Why Do So Few Hold Stocks?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1110-1129, September.
    20. Hubbard, R. Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1994. "The importance of precautionary motives in explaining individual and aggregate saving," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 59-125, June.
    21. R. S. Uhler & J. G. Cragg, 1971. "The Structure of the Asset Portfolios of Households," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(3), pages 341-357.
    22. Feldstein, Martin S, 1976. "Personal Taxation and Portfolio Composition: An Econometric Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(4), pages 631-650, July.
    23. Mervyn A. King & Jonathan I. Leape, 1984. "Wealth and Portfolio Composition: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 1468, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Haliassos, Michael & Hassapis, Christis, 2001. "Non-expected Utility, Saving and Portfolios," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(468), pages 69-102, January.
    2. Bertaut, Carol C. & Haliassos, Michael, 1997. "Precautionary portfolio behavior from a life-cycle perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(8-9), pages 1511-1542, June.
    3. Michael Haliassos & Christis Hassapis, 1998. "Borrowing Constraints, Portfolio Choice, and Precautionary Motives: Theoretical Predictions and Empirical Complications," CSEF Working Papers 11, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    4. Michael Haliassos & Christis Hassapis, 1998. "Borrowing Constraints, Portfolio Choice, and Precautionary," Macroeconomics 9809008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Michael Haliassos & Alexander Michaelides, 2003. "Portfolio Choice and Liquidity Constraints," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(1), pages 143-177, February.
    6. George M. Constantinides, 2002. "Rational Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1567-1591, August.
    7. George M. Constantinides, 2006. "Market Organization And The Prices Of Financial Assets," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 74(s1), pages 1-23, September.
    8. Hochgürtel, S. & Alessie, R.J.M. & van Soest, A.H.O., 1997. "Savings accounts vs. stocks and bonds in household portfolio allocation," Other publications TiSEM 0839bf0f-307e-4016-acc1-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Calvet, Laurent & Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Sodini, Paolo, 2004. "Financial Innovation, Market Participation, and Asset Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 431-459, September.
    10. Fernandez, Pablo & Aguirreamalloa, Javier & Liechtenstein, Heinrich, 2009. "The equity premium puzzle: High required equity premium, undervaluation and self fulfilling prophecy," IESE Research Papers D/821, IESE Business School.
    11. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides, 2005. "Optimal Life‐Cycle Asset Allocation: Understanding the Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 869-904, April.
    12. Mao-Wei Hung & Jr-Yan Wang, 2011. "Loss aversion and the term structure of interest rates," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(29), pages 4623-4640.
    13. Carol C. Bertaut & Martha Starr-McCluer, 2000. "Household portfolios in the United States," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-26, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Alon Brav & George M. Constantinides & Christopher C. Geczy, 2002. "Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Consumers and Limited Participation: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 793-824, August.
    15. Kazufumi Yamana, 2016. "Structural Household Finance," Discussion papers ron279, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan.
    16. M. Humayun Kabir & Shamim Shakur, 2014. "Nonlinear decomposition analysis of risk aversion and stock-holding behaviour of US households," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(7), pages 495-503, April.
    17. Athanasoulis, Stefano G., 2005. "Asset pricing from primitives: closed form solutions to asset prices, consumption, and portfolio demands," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 423-447, March.
    18. Bonaparte, Yosef & Kumar, Alok, 2013. "Political activism, information costs, and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 760-786.
    19. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1058 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Kjetil Storesletten & Chris Telmer & Amir Yaron, 2007. "Asset Pricing with Idiosyncratic Risk and Overlapping Generations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(4), pages 519-548, October.
    21. Kris Jacobs, 2002. "The Rate of Risk Aversion May Be Lower Than You Think," CIRANO Working Papers 2002s-08, CIRANO.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer behavior; Saving and investment;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fedgif:558. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    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.