This paper examines whether political activism increases people's propensity to participate in the stock market. Our key conjecture is that politically active people follow political news more actively, which increases their chance of being exposed to financial news. Consequently, their information gathering costs are likely to be lower and the propensity to participate in the market would be higher. We find support for this hypothesis using multiple micro-level data sets, state-level data from the US, and cross-country data from Europe. Irrespective of their political affiliation, politically active individuals are 9–25% more likely to participate in the stock market. Using residence in “battleground” states and several other geographic instruments, we demonstrate that greater political activism reduces information gathering costs and causes higher market participation rates. Further, consistent with our conjecture, we find that politically active individuals spend about 30 minutes more on news daily and appear more knowledgeable about the economy and the markets.

We examine whether the decision to participate in the stock market and other related portfolio decisions are influenced by income hedging motives. Economic theory predicts that the market participation propensity should increase as the correlation between income growth and stock market returns decreases. Surprisingly, empirical studies find limited support for the income hedging motive. Using a rich, unique Dutch data set and the National Longitudinal Survey of the Youth (NLSY) from the United States, we show that when the income-return correlation is low, individuals exhibit a greater propensity to participate in the market and allocate a larger proportion of their wealth to risky assets. Even when the income risk is high, individuals exhibit a higher propensity to participate in the market when the hedging potential is high. These findings suggest that income hedging is an important determinant of stock market participation and asset allocation decisions.

Investor overconfidence, characterized by an excessive belief in the ability to generate superior portfolio returns, is a widely studied behavioral bias. This paper investigates the mechanisms underlying overconfidence using a Bayesian model that incorporates two features: biased prior beliefs, which imply overconfidence even before investors engage in the stock market, and biased learning, where investors overemphasize instances of outperforming the market. Empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that biased learning contributes to overconfidence, but only in the early years of investor tenure. Although overconfidence decreases with investment experience, we find that it is a widespread and persistent behavioral trait.

We study the financial behavior of minorities over 2007-09. We find that after 2008 and compared to White Americans, African Americans and Hispanics have a higher propensity to increase risk tolerance, optimism, and allocations to risky assets and lower probability of exiting the stock market. These findings cannot be explained by changes in wealth or income, and we speculate that they may be due to the positive effects of the election of President Obama. Specifically, we find that the change in behavior by minorities from 2007 to 2009 is consistent with minorities updating their beliefs about future economic outcomes.