"This paper provides numerical estimates of the distributions of risk tolerance for men and women. A simple model of individual portfolio choice is calibrated to data on Individual Retirement Accounts from the Health and Retirement Study to obtain the estimates. Results show that women tend to be less risk-tolerant than men. The estimates are then used to measure the impact of risk tolerance on wealth accumulation. Simulations show that the difference in risk tolerance can account for around 10% of the gender difference in accumulated wealth." ("JEL" J16, G11, D81) Copyright (c) 2009 Western Economic Association International.
Researchers are increasingly using interdisciplinary theory to bring rigor to the practice of financial education. Practitioners often do not see the value of the theory because it does not coincide with their observations of how people behave, and researchers do not yet have enough experience with interdisciplinary theory to demonstrate its usefulness to practitioners. If carefully applied, theory can be used to set appropriate financial goals and to positively change consumers’ financial behaviors. Better communication can bridge the gap between theory and practice to the benefit of the consumer.
This study constructs a theoretical model of household bargaining to explain the financial decision-making behavior of married couples. We empirically test our model using data from the 2000 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The HRS is unique among national data sets in that it identifies the primary decision-maker and the more financially knowledgeable spouse. It also includes detailed information on the individual retirement accounts (IRAs) of both the husband and the wife. Using this information, we estimate a series of regression models to investigate how decision making and bargaining power affect whether a couple owns an IRA, how much they invest in it, and whether they allocate it to mostly stocks. In general, the results show that, when the husband has more decision-making power than the wife or the decision-making power is about equal, the couple is more likely to own an IRA and to have a larger amount invested in an IRA. Furthermore, the account is more likely to be allocated to mostly stocks when the husband is the financially knowledgeable spouse. Traditional measures of bargaining power also were significant in all of our models, even after we controlled for decision making. The findings have important implications for educators and financial practitioners and provide insight into the importance of having both the husband and wife actively involved in making financial decisions.
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