Preparing for the tax reform: the risky French households' portfolio in 2018

Between 2004 and 2014, the number of shareholders in France fell by approximately 50%. The over-cautiousness of savers observed after the crisis now seems less topical, especially since 2017 was marked in France by a tax reform designed to support shareholding: the implementation of a flat tax and the abolition of wealth tax, replaced by property wealth tax. We therefore analyze the risky portfolios of French households from the last two waves (2014-2015 and 2017-2018) of the INSEE's "Life History and Wealth" survey, which have the advantage of being panelized. Although the 2017-2018 survey comes a little early to analyze the full impact of these reforms, this paper provides an original analysis of the dynamics of households' risky portfolios over the last three years, just before (and shortly after) the implementation of these policies. We show first that the demand for risky assets depends strongly on the level of household wealth and expectations of returns on the stock market, two variables that have likely been affected by the recent reforms. These data also make it possible to assess the extent to which the announcement of the recent tax reform has led to changes in securities holdings.