Genetic Variation in Financial Decision-Making

Individuals differ in how they construct their investment portfolios, yet empirical models of portfolio risk typically account only for a small portion of the cross-sectional variance. This paper asks whether genetic variation can explain some of these individual differences. Following a major pension reform Swedish adults had to form a portfolio from a large menu of funds. We match data on these investment decisions with the Swedish Twin Registry and find that approximately 25% of individual variation in portfolio risk is due to genetic variation. We also find that these results extend to several other aspects of financial decision-making. Copyright (c) 2010 the American Finance Association.