Private Information, Human Capital, and Optimal 'Home Bias' in Financial Markets
Journal of Human Capital, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 255-301, Fall 2011
48 Pages Posted: 31 Jan 2012
There are 4 versions of this paper
Private Information, Human Capital, and Optimal "Home Bias" in Financial Markets
Private Information, Human Capital, and Optimal 'Home Bias' in Financial Markets
Private Information, Human Capital, and Optimal 'Home Bias' in Financial Markets
Human Capital, Endogenous Information Acquisition, and Home Bias in Financial Markets
Date Written: October 2011
Abstract
By allowing for imperfectly informed markets but optimal private information acquisition, we offer new insights about observed variations in portfolio con- centrations in domestic versus foreign risky assets, or “home bias,” and the degree to which home asset prices are “information revealing.” Our model produces discriminating hypotheses about the role of “specific” and “general” human capital endowments and opportunity costs of managing risky assets in deter- mining whether to hold these assets and how their portfolio shares vary across heterogeneous investors and financial markets. These hypotheses are supported by numerical and econometric analyses of panel data from the United States and 23 international financial markets.
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