Limited Stock Market Participation Among Renters and Homeowners

Abstract

The stock market participation rate among homeowners is twice as high as among renters. This paper builds a life-cycle portfolio choice model with endogenous housing tenure choice. A stylized form of preference heterogeneity generates a substantial difference in participation rates. A majority of households have a large savings motive and choose to be homeowners and participate. A minority of households have a small savings motive and find it less worthwhile to participate. Fewer of these households become homeowners. Difference-in-difference regressions on panel data do not find evidence of a crowding-out effect of homeownership on participation, supporting the message that preference heterogeneity matters. Received January 25, 2017; editorial decision March 21, 2018 by Editor Wei Jiang. Authors have furnished an Online Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.