TY  - JOUR
AU  - King,Mervyn A.
AU  - Leape,Jonathan I.
TI  - Asset Accumulation, Information, and the Life Cycle
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2392
PY  - 1987
Y2  - September 1987
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2392
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2392.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Mervyn A. King
Governor
Bank of England
Threadneedle Street
London EC2R 8AH
 UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: 44-20-7601-4963
Fax: 44-20-7601-4953
E-Mail: mervyn.king@bankofengland.co.uk
AB  - Empirical tests of the life cycle model have focused on its implications for the level of a household's total net worth and paid little attention to changes in portfolio composition over the life cycle. In this paper, we examine a new survey of the asset holdings of 6,010 U.S households and show that there is a pronounced life-cycle pattern to both the number and value of assets held by U.S. households. Direct survey evidence suggests that incomplete information is a significant determinant of household portfolio composition. We test the hypothesis that information about investment opportunities arrives stochastically over time, estimating a Poisson model for the arrival of new information.
ER  -