Seven Ways to Knit Your Portfolio: Is Investor Communication Neutral?

Cecilia Boggio (), Elsa Fornero, Henriette Prast and Jose Sanders
Additional contact information
Cecilia Boggio: University of Torino
Henriette Prast: Tilburg University and Netspar
Jose Sanders: Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands

No 140, CeRP Working Papers from Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy)

Abstract: The concept of “familiarity” has been used in financial economics to explain apparent paradoxes in people’s behavior, such as the home bias in portfolio choices. In this study, we investigate whether (lack of) familiarity with the language of investor communication may contribute to an explanation of the well-documented gender gap in financial decision-making (i.e. women participate less in the stock market than men and, if they do, they take less risk than men). Using an interdisciplinary framework that combines insights from Behavioral Economics, Finance, Social Psychology and Linguistics, we analyze the metaphors used in websites that target beginning retail investors in three different languages; Dutch, Italian and English UK. We find that in all three languages the metaphors used come from the same conceptual domains; namely, war, health, physical activity, game, farming and the five senses. As these domains refer to worlds that are predominantly and (stereo)typically masculine, we conclude that the language of investor communication may give rise to feelings of familiarity and belonging among men, while creating feelings of distance and non-belonging among women. In other words, just as emotional responses influence risk assessment and return expectations, the language used in financial communication may contribute to explaining the gender gap in stock market participation, risk taking and portfolio choice.

Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2014-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://fileserver.carloalberto.org/cerp/WP_140.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crp:wpaper:140

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CeRP Working Papers from Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Silvia Maero ().