Stockholding: Does housing wealth matter?

The existence of an equity premium puzzle has been largely emphasized in the empirical literature: one observes low risky assets holding that the standard portfolio choice model (with expected and discounting utility and homothetic preferences) is not able to explain. Besides modifications of rationality assumptions, other changes have been introduced in the standard framework to account for this equity premium puzzle: the existence of transaction costs, liquidity constraints or other risks (e.g. risks associated with employment, income, health,). These background risks (i.e. risks that are unavoidable, exogenous and independent from the financial market risk) may lead households to reduce their stockownership in order to limit their global exposure to risk. Recent developments examine the role of housing on stockholding as another background risk. This paper analyses the empirical link between stockholding and housing wealth within this framework. We use the French wealth survey (Enquête Patrimoine 2004, Insee) that gives us detailed information on households portfolio, socio-demographic variables, and several measures of preference and exposition to various risks (income, unemployment, health, and business). We find that an increase in the housing to net wealth ratio crowds out stock market investment for a given total financial wealth: when facing real estate exposure to risk, households tend to moderate their global exposure to risk by limiting the share of their financial wealth invested in stocks. Among the other significant determinants of the equity premium puzzle, we emphasize the role of transaction and information costs, the attitude toward risk and the exposition to various risks in hampering investments in stocks.Portfolio choice , background risks , housing demand , life-cycle model.

Wealth Effects on Consumption Plans: French Households in the Crisis

This paper analyzes the wealth effect on consumption in France by relying on two original household surveys. First, it provides the first estimate of the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth based on micro data for France (Enquête Patrimoine 2009, Insee): a low but significant wealth effect is obtained and financial wealth seems to be significant only for stockholders. Second, it studies how French households have adapted their consumption plans during the 2008-2009 crisis by relying on household self-assessed changes in future consumption (survey PATER). Besides the direct wealth effect, our results confirm the role played by changes in expectations on consumption plans, and thus, by the confidence channel as an additional transmission mechanism of the crisis.wealth effect, housing and financial wealth, consumption, household survey, expectations.

Informative Social Interactions

We design, field and exploit survey data from a representative sample of the French population to examine whether informative social interactions enter households.stockholding decisions. Respondents report perceptions about their circle of peers with whom they interact about financial matters, their social circle and the population. We provide evidence for the presence of an information channel through which social interactions influence perceptions and expectations about stock returns, and financial behavior. We also find evidence of mindless imitation of peers in the outer social circle, but this does not permeate as many layers of financial behavior as informative social interactions do

Les comportements patrimoniaux des ménages en France : évolutions et déterminants entre 2004 et 2010.

À la lumière des informations issues des enquêtes Patrimoine 2004 et 2010 de l’INSEE et des évaluations des comptes nationaux financiers établis par la Banque de France, l’article propose une première analyse des ajustements patrimoniaux des ménages français depuis 2007.épargne, ménages, portefeuilles, immobilier, risques.