In Victory or Defeat: Consumption Responses to Wealth Shocks

Abstract

Using a novel representative sample of digital payment data, we observe a robust U-shaped relationship between individual investors’ monthly entertainment-related consumption and stock market returns in the previous month. Contrary to the prediction of the wealth effect, individuals increase their entertainment-related consumption after experiencing large positive and negative stock market shocks. We show that the latter effect, termed “financial retail therapy,” is consistent with a dynamic model of Prospect Theory, and provide further evidence for it in a controlled laboratory experiment. Finally, we show that our results are not driven by income effects or wealth shock measurement errors.

Keywords: Wealth shocks, Consumption responses, Behavioral finance, Individual investors, Financial retail therapy, Digital payment data

JEL Classification: D10, D14, G12, G41, G51