Using a large sample of US individuals, we show that individuals with higher levels of trust have lower likelihoods of default in household debt and higher net worth. The effect is driven by trust values inherited from cultural and family backgrounds more than by trust beliefs about others. We demonstrate a causal impact of trust on financial outcomes by extracting the component of trust correlated with early-life experiences. The effect of trust is more pronounced among females, those with lower education, lower income, lower financial literacy, and higher debt-to-income ratio. Further evidence suggests that enhancing individuals’ trust, to the right amount, can improve household financial well-being.

This paper shows that a New Year's gambling preference of individual investors impacts prices and returns of assets with lottery features. January call options, especially the out-of-the-money calls, have higher retail demand and are the most expensive and actively traded. Lottery-type stocks outperform their counterparts in January but tend to underperform in other months. Retail sentiment is more bullish in lottery-type stocks in January than in other months. Furthermore, lottery-type Chinese stocks outperform in the Chinese New Year's Month but not in January. This New Year effect provides new insights into the broad phenomena related to the January effect.