Dario Sansone

Do Women Prefer Pink? The Effect of a Gender Stereotypical Stock Portfolio on Investing Decisions

We investigate whether lack of familiarity may contribute to an explanation of the gender gap in stock market participation and risk taking. We use ads in widely read women magazines to select companies that we assume to be more familiar to women than to men, and construct a “pink�? portfolio. We construct a “blue�? portfolio by selecting stocks from the AEX index. We ask members of the CentERpanel how they would allocate 100.000 euro of pension wealth. Half of respondents are given the choice between government bonds and a portfolio consisting of companies most traded at Amsterdam Exchanges, while the other half can choose between government bonds and our “pink�? portfolio. We find that significantly more women than men choose not to respond after having seen the question and that respondents tend to allocate their hypothetical savings fifty-fifty over stocks and bonds. This could be interpreted either as going for the default choice or the 1/n heuristic. We find a pink portfolio effect among older women, and a significant of framing which is larger for women than for men. We also find that women who already own stocks allocate significantly more to the stock basket than women who do not, which may be interpreted as an effect of familiarity. We find no such effect among men. Our evidence does not show that lack of familiarity with the large companies most traded at the Amsterdam stock exchange explains the gender gap in participation and portfolio choice. What we do find, however, is that a pink portfolio reduces decision time for women, and results in women deciding quicker than men.

Leaving, staying, or coming back ? migration decisions during the northern Mali conflict

Abstract This paper uses a unique dataset to analyse the migration dynamics of refugees, returnees and, internally displaced people from the Northern Mali conflict. Individuals were interviewed monthly using mobile phones. Our results cast light on the characteristics of these three groups before and after displacement. In addition, we test how employment and security were related to migration status, as well as the willingness to go back home. Individuals who were employed while displaced were less willing to go back to the North, while those who owned a gun were more likely to plan to go back. Additional indicators of personal safety played a lesser role.

Financial Inclusion and Life Insurance Demand; Evidence from Italian Households

This paper studies the demand drivers for life insurance, both lump sum and annuity, using the Bank of Italy (SHIW) panel dataset 2004-2012. We consider both participation and invested amounts. We use stock market participation, home ownership and financial literacy as measure of financial market inclusion. We find that financial inclusion stands as the pivotal regressor in shaping life insurance demand, especially annuities, even when we include pension funds in the definition of annuities. Instead, except gender, the traditional drivers of insurance demand, such as income, wealth, geographical or sociological variables, have a lower impact than financial inclusion. These results are robust to the inclusion of time and individual fixed effects, as well as the IV approach to tackle the potential endogeneity of financial inclusion.

Precautionary Savings and the Self-Employed: Does Uncertainty Magnitude Matter?

Precautionary savings have often been analyzed with regard to its impact on current savings. This work focuses instead on the impact of uncertainty on savings under bequest form. We thus turn the focus on estimating whether and to what extent income variability does have an effect on post-mortem savings. We approximate the post-mortem savings with the closest dedicated savings, which is savings in term insurance, a lump sum inherited at the death of the subscriber. Furthermore, we test whether the intensity of the income variance or the riskiness of the job type - such as self-employment - matters more in the choice. Our results show that, even after controlling for income uncertainty, self-employment status is one of the most relevant variables affecting term insurance ownership.