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Tax-Motivated Trading by Individual Investors

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Author Info
Zoran Ivkovich
James Poterba
Scott Weisbenner

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Abstract

We use data on the stock trades of a large number of individual investors to study how tax incentives affect the realization of capital gains and losses. We compare investors' realizations in their taxable and tax-deferred accounts, which allows us to identify tax-motivated trading. We reach three conclusions. First, we find a strong lock-in effect for capital gains in taxable accounts relative to tax-deferred accounts. The capital gains lock-in effect is stronger for large than for small transactions, and it intensifies at longer holding periods. Second, we find tax-loss selling throughout the calendar year, though it is most pronounced in December, particularly if the investor has realized capital gains elsewhere in the portfolio during the year. Third, we observe substantial heterogeneity in individual investors' propensity to trade. Controlling for this heterogeneity, however, does not alter the relationship between a stock's past performance and the realization decision.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10275.

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Date of creation: Feb 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10275

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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Full references

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.)

  1. Zoran Ivkovich & Scott Weisbenner, 2007. "Information Diffusion Effects in Individual Investors' Common Stock Purchases Covet Thy Neighbors' Investment Choices," NBER Working Papers 13201, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. V. V. Chari & Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2005. "Business Start-ups, The Lock-in Effect, and Capital Gains Taxation," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000439, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Clemens Sialm, 2005. "Tax Changes and Asset Pricing: Time-Series Evidence," NBER Working Papers 11756, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Clemens Sialm, 2006. "Investment Taxes and Equity Returns," NBER Working Papers 12146, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Doran, James & Jiang, Danling & Peterson, David, 2008. "Gambling Preference and the New Year Effect of Assets with Lottery Features," MPRA Paper 9258, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Mar 2009. [Downloadable!]
  6. Jon Bakija & Bradley Heim, 2008. "How Does Charitable Giving Respond to Incentives and Income? Dynamic Panel Estimates Accounting for Predictable Changes in Taxation," NBER Working Papers 14237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Doran, James & Jiang, Danling & Peterson, David, 2007. "Short-Sale Constraints and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle: An Event Study Approach," MPRA Paper 4995, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Feb 2009. [Downloadable!]
  8. George M. Korniotis & Alok Kumar, 2008. "Do behavioral biases adversely affect the macro-economy?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-49, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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