Financial Literacy, Portfolio Choice and Wealth Inequality: A General Equilibrium Approach

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Interdisciplinary Centers, Units and Projects::Penn Population Studies Centers::Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)
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Discipline
Economics
Subject
Financial literacy
stock market participation
equity premium
return heterogeneity
wealth inequality
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This paper was supported through a Quartet Pilot Research award and was funded by the Boettner Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
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2024-02-07
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Kim, Min
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Abstract

I develop a general equilibrium model in which households allocate their wealth to safe and risky assets (“bonds” and “stocks”) and accumulate financial literacy to raise their risk-adjusted stock returns. Calibrated to match financial literacy and stock market participation rate of U.S. households, the model demonstrates that a policy subsidizing financial literacy acquisition increases short-run stock investments. In equilibrium, however, the resulting aggregate capital growth lowers the average equity premium, thereby moderating the subsidy’s impact. The policy mitigates wealth inequality by inducing heterogeneous portfolio adjustments across the wealth distribution. With the subsidy, the middle wealth quartiles acquire more financial literacy and shift their portfolios toward stocks. The top quartile attains its maximum literacy level prior to the subsidy and shifts toward bonds to compensate for lower stock returns. The ratio of total wealth held by the top quartile versus the rest of the population decreases.

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Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC), 2024-105
Publication date
2024-02-07
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Kim, Min. 2023. “Financial Literacy, Portfolio Choice, and Wealth Inequality: A General Equilibrium Approach.” University of Pennsylvania Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC).
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