We study the relation between cognitive abilities and stockholding using the recent Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which has detailed data on wealth and portfolio composition of individuals aged 50 in 11 European countries and three indicators of cognitive abilities:...

Using data from SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe), we analyze the effect of having a voluntary health insurance policy (VPHI) on out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending for individuals aged 50 or more in a host of European countries. We control for self selection into VPHI...

We document and study international differences in both ownership and holdings of stocks, private businesses, homes, and mortgages among households aged fifty or more in thirteen countries, using new and comparable survey data. We employ counterfactual techniques to decompose observed...

This paper provides the first joint analysis of household stockholding participation, location among stockholding modes, and participation spillovers. Our model matches observed participation, conditional and unconditional, and asset location patterns. We find that financial sophistication...

We investigate US households' direct investment in stocks, bonds and liquid accounts and their foreign counterparts, in order to identify the different participation hurdles affecting asset investment domestically and overseas. To this end, we estimate a trivariate probit model with three...

The life-cycle theory predicts that wealth should be fully annuitized to insure longevity risks. If annuity markets are incomplete and elderly individuals face other risks (notably, health risks) wealth holdings will include other financial and real assets. However, the life-cycle model under...

Standard tests of portfolio efficiency neglect the existence of illiquid wealth. The most important illiquid asset in household portfolios is housing: if housing stock adjustments are infrequent, optimal portfolios in periods of no adjustment are affected by housing price risk through a hedge...

We address the issue of the efficiency of household portfolios in the presence of housing risk. We treat housing stock as an asset and rents as a stochastic liability stream: over the life-cycle, households can be short or long in their net housing position. Efficient financial portfolios are...