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Journal of Finance Vol. 79 No. 3 2024

Countercyclical Income Risk and Portfolio Choices: Evidence from Sweden

Sylvain Catherine; Paolo Sodini; YAPEI ZHANG1

1 ShanghaiTech University

Abstract

Using Swedish administrative panel data, we document that workers facing higher left‐tail income risk when equity markets perform poorly have lower portfolio equity share. In line with theory, the relationship between cyclical skewness and stock holdings increases with the share of human capital in a worker's total wealth and vanishes as workers get closer to retirement. Cyclical skewness also predicts portfolio differences within pairs of identical twins. Our findings show that households hedge against correlated tail risks, an important mechanism in asset pricing and portfolio choice models.

DOI
10.1111/jofi.13341
Volume
79
Issue
3
Pages
1755-1788
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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