IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cca/wpaper/297.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do more financially literate households invest less in housing? Evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Riccardo Calcagno
  • Maria Cesira Urzì Brancati

Abstract

Using the Bank of Italy’s Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) covering a 5-year panel, we measure the impact of the degree of households’ financial literacy on their portfolio imbalance towards housing investment. We find that households with higher levels of financial literacy hold a relatively lower share of illiquid wealth, and the results are more pronounced at older ages, when according to the lifecycle hypothesis they are meant to decumulate their assets. Results appear robust to different specifications of the dependent variable and potential endogeneity of financial literacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Riccardo Calcagno & Maria Cesira Urzì Brancati, 2013. "Do more financially literate households invest less in housing? Evidence from Italy," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 297, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    • Handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:297
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/no.297.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria Chiuri & Tullio Jappelli, 2010. "Do the elderly reduce housing equity? An international comparison," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 643-663, March.
    2. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia Mitchell, 2006. "Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: Evidence and Implications for Financial Education Programs," Working Papers wp144, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    3. Brueckner, Jan K, 1997. "Consumption and Investment Motives and the Portfolio Choices of Homeowners," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 159-180, October.
    4. Pelizzon, Loriana & Weber, Guglielmo, 2009. "Efficient portfolios when housing needs change over the life cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2110-2121, November.
    5. Fornero, Elsa & Monticone, Chiara, 2011. "Financial literacy and pension plan participation in Italy," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 547-564, October.
    6. Marjorie Flavin & Takashi Yamashita, 2002. "Owner-Occupied Housing and the Composition of the Household Portfolio," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 345-362, March.
    7. Davidoff, Thomas, 2006. "Labor income, housing prices, and homeownership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 209-235, March.
    8. Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2006. "Residential Mobility and Housing Adjustment of Older Households in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 2435, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    10. Dan Andrews & Aida Caldera Sánchez, 2011. "Drivers of Homeownership Rates in Selected OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 849, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Asmare, Fissha & Giedraitis, Vincentas & Jaraitė, Jūratė & Kažukauskas, Andrius, 2023. "Energy-related financial literacy and retrofits of Soviet-era apartment buildings: The case of Lithuania," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    2. Mariacristina Rossi & Dario Sansone, 2018. "Precautionary savings and the self-employed," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 105-127, June.
    3. Marianna Brunetti & Costanza Torricelli, 2012. "Second Homes: Households' Life Dream or (Wrong) Investment?," CEIS Research Paper 351, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 04 Aug 2012.
    4. Marianna Brunetti & Costanza Torricelli, 2012. "Second Homes: Households' Life Dream or (Wrong) Investment?," CEIS Research Paper 351, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 04 Aug 2012.

    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. Otto Van Hemert, 2010. "Household Interest Rate Risk Management," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 467-505, September.
    2. Costa-Font, Joan & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2022. "Health shocks and housing downsizing: How persistent is ‘ageing in place’?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 490-508.
    3. Philippe Bracke & Christian Hilber & Olmo Silva, 2014. "Homeownership and Entrepreneurship: The Role of Mortgage Debt and Commitment," CESifo Working Paper Series 5048, CESifo.
    4. James Banks & Richard Blundell & Zoë Oldfield & James P. Smith, 2016. "House Price Volatility and the Housing Ladder," NBER Chapters, in: Insights in the Economics of Aging, pages 87-119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bonnet, Carole & Gobillon, Laurent & Laferrère, Anne, 2010. "The effect of widowhood on housing and location choices," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 94-108, June.
    6. Anna Schors & Rob Alessie & Mauro Mastrogiacomo, 2007. "Notes and Communications," De Economist, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 99-121, March.
    7. Yoshida, Jiro, 2017. "Stock Prices, Regional Housing Prices, and Aggregate Technology Shocks," HIT-REFINED Working Paper Series 72, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Anna van der Schors & Rob Alessie & Mauro Mastrogiacomo, 2007. "Home and mortgage ownership of the Dutch elderly; explaining cohort, time and age effects," CPB Discussion Paper 77.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    9. Anna van der Schors & Rob J.M. Alessie & Mauro Mastrogiacomo, 2007. "Home and Mortgage Ownership of the Dutch Elderly: Explaining Cohort, Time and Age Effects," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 183, McMaster University.
    10. Bracke, Philippe & Hilber, Christian A.L. & Silva, Olmo, 2018. "Mortgage debt and entrepreneurship," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 52-66.
    11. Munk, Claus, 2020. "A mean-variance benchmark for household portfolios over the life cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    12. Marekwica, Marcel & Schaefer, Alexander & Sebastian, Steffen, 2013. "Life cycle asset allocation in the presence of housing and tax-deferred investing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1110-1125.
    13. Jan Rouwendal, 2009. "Housing Wealth and Household Portfolios in an Ageing Society," De Economist, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 1-48, March.
    14. Damian S. Damianov & Diego Escobari, 2021. "Getting on and Moving Up the Property Ladder: Real Hedging in the U.S. Housing Market Before and After the Crisis," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1201-1237, December.
    15. Luc Arrondel & Fr餩rique Savignac, 2015. "Risk management, housing and stockholding," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(39), pages 4208-4227, August.
    16. repec:esx:essedp:712 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Pelizzon, Loriana & Weber, Guglielmo, 2009. "Efficient portfolios when housing needs change over the life cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2110-2121, November.
    18. Matthew Chambers & Carlos Garriga & Don E. Schlagenhauf, 2009. "Accounting For Changes In The Homeownership Rate," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(3), pages 677-726, August.
    19. Mavropoulos, Antonios & Xiong, Qizhou, 2019. "Housing consumption and macroprudential policies in Europe: An ex ante evaluation," IWH Discussion Papers 17/2018, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), revised 2019.
    20. Raj Chetty & László Sándor & Adam Szeidl, 2017. "The Effect of Housing on Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(3), pages 1171-1212, June.
    21. Andrea Camilli & Pedro Gomes, 2023. "Public employment and homeownership dynamics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 194(1), pages 101-155, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    financial literacy; intertemporal consumer choice; housing; portfolio choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cca:wpaper:297. 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: Giovanni Bert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fccaait.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.