Exploiting French survey data, we empirically ascertain whether earnings uncertainty and borrowing constraints decrease households demand for risky assets, consistent with theoretical predictions. A major empirical problem is the potential endogeneity bias of income risk, as more risk averse...

Recent research has separately uncovered that stock ownership strongly correlates with both expectations and realizations of stock market returns, as well as with measures of financial literacy, ability or trust. This paper reconciles all, and reports new findings from a unique survey containing...

Household finances are confidential and discussions are limited to a subset of peers. We collect representative survey data to examine whether interactions with inner and outer social circles influence return perceptions, expectations, and exposure to a widely known financial instrument in a...

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. Re- spondents report perceptions about their circle of peers with whom they interact about financial matters,...

Exploiting a representative sample of the French population by age, wealth, and asset classes, we document novel facts about their expectations and perceptions of stock market returns. Both expectations and perceptions of returns are very dispersed, significantly lower than their data...