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Precautionary Saving, Financial Risk, and Portfolio Choice

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  • Manuela Deidda

Abstract

Relying on a direct question about the desired amount of precautionary wealth from the 2002 wave of the Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth, I assess the main determinants of precautionary motive for saving. In particular, I focus on the role played by financial risk on households' saving decisions. Actually, households investing mainly in safe assets do not need to protect themselves against future and unexpected financial losses. Consequently, controlling for households' sources of risk beside financial ones, the amount of precautionary savings of a household who invest exclusively in safe assets should be lower compared to households who instead detain a non-negligible share of risky assets in their portfolio. Moreover, portfolio diversification, reducing households' total exposure to financial risk, should reduce the amount of wealth households need to save for precautionary reasons. In this paper, I provide an empirical assessment of the linkage existing between the composition of households' portfolio and the amount of wealth households wish to have to protect themselves against unexpected contingencies. As expected, a strong and negative correlation exists between the desired amount of precautionary wealth and the ownership of a portfolio made exclusively of safe assets. However, households do not seem to use portfolio diversification to reduce exposure to total risk. Finally, I address the issue of complementarity vs. substitution between formal and informal insurance schemes. Actually, trust in capital market would lower substantially the amount of wealth households wish to detain for precautionary reasons. However, there is no evidence in favour of a negative and strong linkage between precautionary saving and insurance.
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Suggested Citation

  • Manuela Deidda, 2013. "Precautionary Saving, Financial Risk, and Portfolio Choice," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(1), pages 133-156, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:59:y:2013:i:1:p:133-156
    DOI: 10.1111/roiw.2013.59.issue-1
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    Cited by:

    1. Marcela Ibanez & Sebastian O. Schneider, 2023. "Income Risk, Precautionary Saving, and Loss Aversion – An Empirical Test," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2023_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Bande, Roberto & Riveiro, Dolores & Ruiz, Freddy, 2021. "Does Uncertainty Affect Saving Decisions of Colombian Households? Evidence on Precautionary Saving," MPRA Paper 106771, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Alba Lugilde, 2024. "The impact of measured income uncertainty on Spanish household consumption at the end of the Great Recession," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 679-702, August.
    4. Lugilde, Alba, 2018. "Does income uncertainty affect Spanish household consumption?," MPRA Paper 87110, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Alba Lugilde & Roberto Bande & Dolores Riveiro, 2018. "Precautionary saving in Spain during the great recession: evidence from a panel of uncertainty indicators," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 1151-1179, December.
    6. Sanjit Dhami & Narges Hajimoladarvish & Konstantinos Georgalos, 2023. "Precautionary Savings, Loss Aversion, and Risk: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10570, CESifo.
    7. Lugilde, Alba & Bande, Roberto & Riveiro, Dolores, 2017. "Precautionary Saving: a review of the theory and the evidence," MPRA Paper 77511, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Xiaoqin Sun & Yuhai Su & Honglei Liu & Chengyou Li, 2022. "The Impact of House Price on Urban Household Consumption: Micro Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-20, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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