Early Health, Risk Aversion and Stock Market Participation

To examine the relationship between early health status and financial decisions in adulthood, we link information on birth weight in 1966 from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort to data from the Finnish Central Securities Depository over the period of 1995-2010. We find that persons predisposed to po...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Böckerman, Petri, Conlin, Andrew, Svento, Rauli
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) 2019
Subjects:
ddc:330
I10
G11
health status
birth weight
stock market participation
demo
eco
Northern Finland
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10419/202687
Description
Summary:To examine the relationship between early health status and financial decisions in adulthood, we link information on birth weight in 1966 from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort to data from the Finnish Central Securities Depository over the period of 1995-2010. We find that persons predisposed to poor health status in early childhood (indicated by low birth weight) avoid participating in the stock market in adulthood. The link between birth weight and stock market participation is partially explained by the fact that poor early health status leads to risk aversion. Early health status is not significantly related to the portfolio's value-growth tilt.

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