The study of household finance in China
| Speaker | Ms. HUANG Zhen, Sabrina PhD Student |
| Date | 14 May 2013 (Tuesday) |
| Time | 2:30 – 4:00 pm |
| Venue | WYL314, Dorothy Y. L. Wong Building |
| Chief Supervisor | Professor WEI Xiangdong |
| Co-supervisor | Professor SEADE Jesús |
Abstract
Household Finance is an emerging field of finance, which studies the welfare benefits of financial markets for households and how effectively households use this market. It is of significant importance for both academy and policy. However, as an emerging new field, studies in this field are still in its scarcity. Using data from a national representative survey, this thesis is the first one systematically investigating Chinese households' investment in stock market.
The thesis mainly contains three essays. In the first essay, I investigate households' participation decision in stock market. I find significant effects from factors reflecting risk preference, information cost, liquidity constraint, age, gender, marital status, wealth, job nature, expectation on the future economic prospect. Risk aversion stands out as the single most significant factor affecting stock participation and seems to be the most important channel through which other factors exert their influences. The poor, less-educated, and minority are less likely to invest in stocks, while married people, female, residents in major cities, employees in state-owned enterprises, employees of financial or information sectors are more likely to participate. Optimism about future economic prospect is also found to have statistically significant positive effect on stock market participation.
The thesis mainly contains three essays. In the first essay, I investigate households' participation decision in stock market. I find significant effects from factors reflecting risk preference, information cost, liquidity constraint, age, gender, marital status, wealth, job nature, expectation on the future economic prospect. Risk aversion stands out as the single most significant factor affecting stock participation and seems to be the most important channel through which other factors exert their influences. The poor, less-educated, and minority are less likely to invest in stocks, while married people, female, residents in major cities, employees in state-owned enterprises, employees of financial or information sectors are more likely to participate. Optimism about future economic prospect is also found to have statistically significant positive effect on stock market participation.