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Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Personal Illiquid Projects

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Author Info
Miquel Faig
Pauline Shum

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Abstract

Personal projects, such as a private business or the purchase of a home, influence portfolio choice in two ways. First, financial assets can be used to provide diversification against bad outcomes of personal projects. Second, financial assets can be used to provide liquidity to personal projects when these projects are illiquid and individuals have a limited debt capacity. The latter interaction is the focus of our paper. Due to this liquidity consideration, individuals are more risk averse if there is a large penalty for discontinuing or under-investing in the final stages of a project. A large penalty arises when there is strong complementarity between investments at dierent stages, or in projects that require lumpy investments. We provide a theoretical analysis and an empirical investigation of these eects. Using data from the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances, we show that, consistent with our hypotheses, households which are saving to invest in their own businesses or in their own homes have significantly safer financial portfolios. The impact of the first category is particularly strong. Our findings also help explain why households, in particular younger ones, have larger than expected holdings of safe financial assets.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Toronto, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number faig-00-03.

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Length: 27 pages
Date of creation: 11 May 2000
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Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:faig-00-03

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Related research
Keywords: Illiquid projects; portfolio choice;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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  1. Canadian Macro Study Group
References listed on IDEAS
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. George M. Constantinidies & John B. Donaldson & Rajnish Mehra, 1998. "Junior Can't Borrow: A New Perspective on the Equity Premium Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 6617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Bengt Holmstrom & Jean Tirole, 1998. "LAPM: A Liquidity Based Asset Pricing Model," Working papers 98-8, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  4. Ravi Jagannathan & Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 1996. "Why should older people invest less in stock than younger people?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Sum, pages 11-23. [Downloadable!]
  5. Heaton, John & Lucas, Deborah, 1997. "Market Frictions, Savings Behavior, And Portfolio Choice," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(01), pages 76-101, January. [Downloadable!]
  6. John Heaton & Deborah Lucas, 1993. "Evaluating the Effects of Incomplete Markets on Risk Sharing and Asset Pricing," NBER Working Papers 4249, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Weil, Philippe, 1992. "Equilibrium asset prices with undiversifiable labor income risk," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 769-790. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 1996. "The Equity Premium: It's Still a Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 42-71, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. " Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-58, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. John Heaton & Deborah Lucas, 2000. "Portfolio Choice and Asset Prices: The Importance of Entrepreneurial Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1163-1198, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Eduardo Walker, 2006. "Optimal Portfolios In Defined Contribution Pension Systems," Abante, Escuela de Administracion. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 9(2), pages 99-129. [Downloadable!]
  2. Raffaele Miniaci & Sergio Pastorello, 2008. "Mean-Variance Econometric Analysis of Household Portfolios," Working Papers 0807, University of Brescia, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Guiso, Luigi & Haliassos, Michalis & Jappelli, Tullio, 2003. "Household Stockholding in Europe: Where Do We Stand, and Where Do We Go?," CEPR Discussion Papers 3694, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Wolfram Horneff & Raimond Maurer & Michael Stamos, 2006. "Life-Cycle Asset Allocation with Annuity Markets: Is Longevity Insurance a Good Deal?," Working Papers wp146, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center. [Downloadable!]
  5. Miquel Faig & Pauline Shum, 2006. "What Explains Household Stock Holdings?," Working Papers tecipa-218, University of Toronto, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2005. "Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle in the Presence of 'Trickle Down' Labor Income," NBER Working Papers 11247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Luca Benzoni & Olena Chyruk, 2009. "Investing over the life cycle with long-run labor income risk," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q III, pages 29-43. [Downloadable!]
  8. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2007. "Portfolio choice over the life-cycle when the stock and labor markets are cointegrated," Working Paper Series WP-07-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  9. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel, 2006. "Do Wealth Fluctuations Generate Time-varying Risk Aversion? Micro-Evidence on Individuals' Asset Allocation," NBER Working Papers 12809, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Klos, Alexander & Weber, Martin, 2004. "Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Nontradeable Income: An Experimental Analysis," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 04-01, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim & Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim. [Downloadable!]
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