Participation Constraints in the Stock Market: Evidence from Unexpected Inheritance Due to Sudden Death
利用突发死亡带来的意外遗产作为自然实验，研究参与成本是否阻碍人们进入股市。发现意外财富虽能促进参与，但多数家庭仍持有大量安全资产，且继承股票的家庭多选择卖出，表明参与成本并非主要障碍。
We use a natural experiment to investigate the impact of participation constraints on individuals' decisions to invest in the stock market. Unexpected inheritance due to sudden deaths results in exogenous variation in financial wealth, and allows us to examine whether fixed entry and ongoing participation costs cause non-participation. We have three key findings. First, windfall wealth has a positive effect on participation. Second, the majority of households do not react to sizeable windfalls by entering the stock market, but hold on to substantial safe assets--even over longer horizons. Third, the majority of households inheriting stock holdings actively sell the entire portfolio. Overall, these findings suggest that participation by many individuals is unlikely to be constrained by financial participation costs. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.