We propose that stock-market participation is influenced by social interaction. In our model, any given "social" investor finds the market more attractive when more of his peers participate. We test this theory using data from the Health and Retirement Study, and find that social households-those who interact with their neighbors, or attend church-are substantially more likely to invest in the market than non-social households, controlling for wealth, race, education, and risk tolerance. Moreover, consistent with a peer-effects story, the impact of sociability is stronger in states where stock-market participation rates are higher. Copyright 2004 by The American Finance Association.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Dimitrios Christelis & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2006.
"Cognitive Abilities and Portfolio Choice,"
CSEF Working Papers
157, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Salerno, Italy.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2005.
"Trusting the Stock Market,"
NBER Working Papers
11648, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Jens Ludwig & Jeffrey R. Kling, 2006.
"Is Crime Contagious?,"
NBER Working Papers
12409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)