Parental death in childhood and stock market participation: Cross-cultural insights
研究发现美国童年丧亲家庭更少参与股市，但中国无此效应，部分归因于中国文化强调集体主义，能缓冲创伤影响。
This paper examines cross-country differences in the relationship between traumatic experience in childhood and household stock market participation. We find that US households that experience the death of a parent during childhood are less likely to participate in the stock market. Conversely, experiencing parental death in childhood does not affect stockholdings in China. Further analyses show that the results can be partially explained by the cultural differences between the two countries. Specifically, due to China’s emphasis on collectivistic values, Chinese bereaved children are less sensitive to traumatic experience and more likely to receive financial support from in-group members that can “cushion” the adverse impact of parental death. We obtain similar conclusions out-of-sample when extending the analyses to Korean versus English households as well as to other European countries. Overall, our paper highlights novel interactions between personal experience and the cultural environment in shaping financial decision-making behavior .