Inter-Asset Differences in Effective Estate Tax Burdens

This paper explores the effect of discretion in estate valuation techniques on the effective estate tax burden on different asset classes. For some assets, such as liquid securities, there is relatively little discretion in valuation. For other assets, such as partial interests in closely-held businesses, family limited partnerships, and real assets or collectibles that are traded in thin markets, estate valuations may be more difficult to establish. Estate tax filers may therefore be able to select valuations that reduce the reported value of the estate assets, and therefore the effective estate tax burden. In 1998, estates that invoked the doctrine of minority discounts' in valuing non-controlling interests in limited partnerships claimed an average discount of 36 percent for these assets, relative to their estimated market value. More than half of all limited partnership assets reported on estate tax returns were valued using this doctrine. This suggests that for a given statutory estate tax rate, the effective estate tax burden may be greater on assets that are easily valued than on difficult-to-value assets. A comparison of the mix of assets reported on estate tax returns, and the mix the estate tax returns would be predicted to hold, given data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, is consistent with lower relative valuations for difficult-to-value assets.

Information Diffusion Effects in Individual Investors' Common Stock Purchases Covet Thy Neighbors' Investment Choices

We study the relation between households' stock purchases and stock purchases made by their neighbors. A ten percentage point increase in neighbors' purchases of stocks from an industry is associated with a two percentage point increase in households' own purchases of stocks from that industry. The effect is considerably larger for local stocks and among households in more social states. Controlling for area sociability, households' and neighbors' investment style preferences, and the industry composition of local firms, we attribute approximately one-quarter to one-half of the correlation between households' stock purchases and stock purchases made by their neighbors to word-of-mouth communication.

Information Diffusion Effects in Individual Investors' Common Stock Purchases: Covet Thy Neighbors' Investment Choices

Using data on stock purchases individual investors made through a discount broker from 1991 to 1996, we study information diffusion effects the relation between household investment choices and those made by their neighbors. A ten percentage point increase in neighbors' purchases of stocks from an industry is associated with a two percentage point increase in the household's own purchases of stocks from that industry, with the effect considerably larger for purchases of local stocks. The presence of information diffusion effects is robust to controls for potential inside information effects and to household fixed effects. Upon controlling for aggregate trading patterns, households' and neighbors' investment style preferences, and the industry composition of local firms, we attribute approximately one-third to one-half of the overall diffusion effect to word-of-mouth communication. Disentangling the overall diffusion effect suggests that the significant relation between our measures of information diffusion and subsequent industry-level returns appears to be driven by its word-of-mouth component.

Local Does as Local Is: Information Content of the Geography of Individual Investors' Common Stock Investments

Using a data set on the investments made by a large number of retail investors from 1991 to 1996, we find that households exhibit a strong preference for local investment - the average household invests nearly a third of their portfolio in firms headquartered within 250 miles. We test whether this locality bias is driven by information or by simple familiarity. The average household generates an additional return of 3.7% per year from its local holdings relative to its non-local holdings, suggesting local investors are able to exploit local knowledge. The excess return to investing locally is even larger among stocks not in the S&P 500 index (firms where informational asymmetries between local and non-local investors may be largest), while there is no excess return earned by households that invest in local S&P 500 stocks.

Is a Bird in Hand Worth More than a Bird in the Bush? Intergenerational Transfers and Savings Behavior

This paper provides new evidence on the decomposition of aggregate household wealth into life-cycle and transfer wealth. Using the 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances, it finds that transfer wealth accounts for approximately one-fifth to one-quarter of aggregate wealth, suggesting a larger role for life-cycle savings than some previous estimates. Despite the smaller aggregate size of transfer wealth, its concentration among a small number of households suggests that it can still have an important effect on the savings decisions of recipients. Estimates suggest that past receipts of transfer wealth reduce life-cycle savings by as much as dollar-for-dollar, while expected future transfers do not produce such a crowd-out effect.

Who Chooses Defined Contribution Plans?

This paper provides new evidence on what types of individuals are most likely to choose a defined contribution (DC) plan over a defined benefit (DB) plan. Making use of administrative data from the State Universities Retirement System (SURS) of Illinois, we study the decisions of nearly 50,000 new employees who make a one-time, irrevocable choice between a traditional DB plan, a portable DB plan, and an entirely self-managed DC plan. Because the SURS-covered earnings of these employees are not covered under the Social Security system, their choices provides insight into the DB vs. DC preferences of individuals with regard to a primary source of their retirement income. We find that a majority of participants fail to make an active decision and are thus defaulted into the traditional DB plan after 6 months. We also find that those individuals who are most likely to be financially sophisticated are most likely to choose the self-managed DC plan, despite the fact that, given plan parameters, the DC plan is inferior to the portable DB plan under reasonable assumptions about future financial market returns. We discuss both rational and behavioral reasons that might explain this finding.

Portfolio Concentration and the Performance of Individual Investors

Using data on the investments a large number of individual investors made through a discount broker from 1991 to 1996, we find that the stock trades by households with concentrated portfolios outperform those with diversified portfolios. While in general the stocks bought by individual investors significantly underperform the stocks they sell, the reverse is true for households whose holdings are concentrated in a few stocks. The excess return of concentrated relative to diversified portfolios is stronger for households with large account balances as well as for stocks not included in the S&P 500 Index and local stocks, potentially reflecting concentrated investors' successful exploitation of information asymmetries. This finding is very robust to alternative concentration measures and regression specifications, and to alternative explanations such as differences across concentrated and diversified investors in the portfolio turnover and access to inside information, suggesting that some of these concentrated households have superior information processing skills. Moreover, controlling for a household's average investment ability, the household's trades perform better as the household's portfolio includes fewer stocks. However, while concentrated household portfolios on average outperform diversified ones, their levels of total risk are larger and the Sharpe ratios of their stock portfolios are lower.

Executive Financial Incentives and Payout Policy: Firm Responses to the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut

We test whether executive stock ownership affects firm payouts using the 2003 dividend tax cut to identify an exogenous change in the after-tax value of dividends. We find that executives with higher stock ownership were more likely to increase dividends after the tax cut in 2003, whereas no relation is found in previous periods when the dividend tax rate was higher. Relative to previous years, firms that initiated dividends in 2003 were more likely to reduce repurchases. The stock price reaction to the tax cut suggests that the substitution of dividends for repurchases may have been anticipated, consistent with agency conflicts.