Trust and Household Portfolios: Empirical Evidence From Italy

This article provides empirical evidence on the existence and the extent of the influence of trust in financial decisions using individual data on Italian households from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth, 2010. This article studies the relationship between, trust in people, trust in banks and more detailed previously unexplored dimensions of trust, and household financial portfolio decisions. The article provides empirical evidence that trust in people and trust in banks affect both participation in financial markets, the share of risky assets and the diversification of the financial portfolio, controlling socio-demographic factors, risk aversion, and financial literacy as well. The article finds that trust is important for individuals with a lower level of education who have limited possibilities to acquire and process information on financial markets need to rely in trustworthy relationship to define their financial portfolio. Further, we present evidence that the main channel by which trust affects financial decision making and determines too little participation, a lower share of risky assets in the financial wealth and poorly diversified portfolios is trust in family and friends.