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Peer effects in stock market participation: Evidence from immigration

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  • Anastasia Girshina
  • Thomas Y. Mathä
  • Michael Ziegelmeyer

Abstract

This paper studies how peers’ financial behaviour affects individuals’ own investment choices. To identify the peer effect, we exploit the unique composition of the Luxembourg population and use the differences in stock market participation across various immigrant groups to study how they affect stock market participation of natives. We solve the reflection problem by instrumenting immigrants’ stock market participation with lagged participation rates in their countries of birth. We separate the peer effect from the contextual and correlated effects by controlling for neighbourhood and individual characteristics. We find that stock market participation of immigrant peers has sizeable effects on that of natives. We also provide evidence that social learning is one of the channels through which the peer effect is transmitted. However, social learning alone does not account for the entire effect and we conclude that social utility might also play an important role in peer effects transmission.

Suggested Citation

  • Anastasia Girshina & Thomas Y. Mathä & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2019. "Peer effects in stock market participation: Evidence from immigration," BCL working papers 137, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
  • Handle: RePEc:bcl:bclwop:bclwp137
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    Cited by:

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    2. Hermansson, Cecilia & Jonsson, Sara & Liu, Lu, 2022. "The medium is the message: Learning channels, financial literacy, and stock market participation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Arrondel, Luc & Calvo-Pardo, Hector & Giannitsarou, Chryssi & Haliassos, Michael, 2022. "Informative social interactions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 246-263.
    4. Javier Olivera & Philippe Kerm, 2022. "Public support for tax policies in COVID-19 times: evidence from Luxembourg," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(6), pages 1395-1418, December.
    5. Yiwen Chen & Thomas Y. Mathä & Giuseppe Pulina & Barbara Schuster & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2020. "The Luxembourg Household Finance Consumption Survey: Results from the third wave," BCL working papers 142, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    6. Yiwen Chen & Thomas Y. Mathä & Giuseppe Pulina & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2021. "The Cross border Household Finance Consumption Survey: Results from the third wave," BCL working papers 154, Central Bank of Luxembourg.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer effects; stock market participation; social utility; social learning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G5 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

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