Household Portfolios in Italy

Luigi Guiso () and Tullio Jappelli ()

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: We provide a detailed account of the portfolio of Italian households and its evolution, using repeated cross-sectional and panel data drawn from the 1989-98 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth. We offer an in-depth description of the lifetime pattern of asset holdings and their composition, the degree of asset diversification, and the propensity to invest in risky assets. The data also allow us to address some more fundamental issues on the determinants of household portfolios. We look at portfolio mobility and elaborate on the relevance of entry and exit costs. We also provide new evidence on the effect of income risk and information acquisition on portfolio choice.

Keywords: portfolio choice; diversification; portfolio mobility; information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E2 D8 G1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec
Date: Written
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Published in Household Portfolios, edited by L. Guiso, M. Haliassos and T. Jappelli. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003

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http://www.csef.it/WP/wp43.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Household Portfolios in Italy (2000)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sef:csefwp:43

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