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Review of Finance Vol. 9 No. 4 2005

Awareness and Stock Market Participation

Luigi Guiso1; Tullio Jappelli2

1 University of Sassari, Ente Luigi Einaudi for Monetary, Banking and Financial Studies and CEPR · 2 University of Salerno, CSEF, and CEPR

Abstract

The paper documents lack of awareness of financial assets in the 1995 and 1998 Bank of Italy Surveys of Household Income and Wealth. It then explores the determinants of awareness, and finds that the probability that survey respondents are aware of stocks, mutual funds and investment accounts is positively correlated with education, household resources, long-term bank relations and proxies for social interaction. Lack of financial awareness has important implications for understanding the stockholding puzzle and for estimating stock market participation costs.

DOI
10.1007/s10679-005-5000-8
Volume
9
Issue
4
Pages
537-567
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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