Does Household Finance Matter? Small Financial Errors with Large Social Costs
American Economic Review
vol. 109,
no. 3, March 2019
(pp. 1116-54)
Abstract
Households with familiarity biases tilt their portfolios toward a few risky assets. The resulting mean-variance loss from portfolio underdiversification is equivalent to only a modest reduction of about 1 percent per year in a household's portfolio return. However, once we consider also the effect of familiarity biases on the asset-allocation and intertemporal consumption-savings decisions, the welfare loss is multiplied by a factor of four. In general equilibrium, the suboptimal decisions of households distort also aggregate growth, amplifying further the overall social welfare loss. Our findings demonstrate that financial markets are not a mere sideshow to the real economy and that improving the financial decisions of households can lead to large benefits, not just for individual households, but also for society.Citation
Bhamra, Harjoat S., and Raman Uppal. 2019. "Does Household Finance Matter? Small Financial Errors with Large Social Costs." American Economic Review, 109 (3): 1116-54. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20161076Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
- E21 Macroeconomics: Consumption; Saving; Wealth
- E44 Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
- G11 Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
- G41 Behavioral Finance: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets