Are Economists More Likely to Hold Stocks?

Charlotte Christiansen, Juanna Joensen and Jesper Rangvid ()
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Jesper Rangvid: School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus, Denmark and CREATES, Postal: 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

CREATES Research Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract: A large register-based panel data set containing detailed information on educational attainments as well as financial and socioeconomic variables for individual investors enables us to test the hypothesis that due to informational advantages economists are more likely to hold stocks than otherwise identical investors. Firstly, we consider the change in stockholdings associated with (i) completing an economics education and (ii) an economist moving into the household. Secondly, we model the stock market participation decision by a probit model with unobserved individual heterogeneity. This model allows us to control for both observable and unobservable investor characteristics. Thirdly, instrumental variables estimation allows us to identify the causal effect of an economics education on stock market participation for individuals who are induced to acquire an economics education due to a university opening. Throughout, we focus explicitly on the effect of a change in educational status on the likelihood of holding stocks. Our overall result is that economists have a significantly higher probability of participating in the stock market than investors with any other education. This result is shown to be highly robust. Finally, we find that economists hold more stocks value-wise than similar investors with other educational backgrounds.

Keywords: Investor Education; Portfolio Choice; Stock Market Participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 I29 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43
Date: 2007-05-15
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Journal Article: Are Economists More Likely to Hold Stocks? (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:create:2007-08

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