AFA Ph.D. Student Poster Session at the 2020 Annual Meeting(27)

I examine how beliefs in the afterlife affect household asset allocation decisions and asset returns in the United States. Economic achievement is an indication that a Protes- tant will reach heaven but it is of lesser importance for a Catholic’s salvation. Incentivized to accumulate wealth, Protestants allocate more wealth to risky assets and are more likely to participate in the stock market. They also use financial markets to smooth their idiosyncratic income shocks, leading to lower income inequality, higher stock prices, and lower expected returns in high-Protestant areas. Overall, these findings suggest that religious beliefs in the afterlife can have social and economic implications.

原文链接：

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=AFAPS2020&paper_id=317

This paper studies why investors buy dividend-paying assets and how they time their consumption accordingly to anticipated income. We combine administrative data on bank customers linking detailed portfolio and trading data, categorized consumption transactions and income, and survey responses on financial behavior. We find that private consumption is excessively sensitive to dividend income. Investors across wealth, income and age distributions increase spending precisely around dividend receipt. Importantly, we find that consumption responses are driven by financially sophisticated investors who select dividend portfolios, anticipate dividend income, and plan consumption accordingly. Our results contribute to the literature on a dividend clientele and provide evidence of ‘planned’ excess sensitivity.

原文链接：

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=AFAPS2020&paper_id=318

This paper investigates how mortgage market conditions affect housing markets and the demand for home ownership. Using unique data on home owners’ listings and transactions from the largest Chinese real estate brokerage company, and exploiting policy-driven changes in mortgage credit conditions in China, I provide empirical evidence that higher mortgage interest rates and down payment requirements have a negative effect on housing demand and prices. Estimating a structural model of households’ demand and supply of residential properties, I quantify how mortgage interest rates and down payment requirements affect the value of holding residential properties, and how they influence housing demand, housing market liquidity, and the relative bargaining power of property sellers and buyers in housing markets.

原文链接：

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=AFAPS2020&paper_id=320