{"title":"Sophistication in Retirement Savings Investment Choices","authors":"P. Gerrans, Ghialy Yap","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1636111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1636111","url":null,"abstract":"This paper assesses the level of sophistication evident in investment choices of a large sample of individuals drawn from three Australian retirement savings funds. Available US and UK evidence is somewhat mixed on both the measures that should be used when measuring the sophistication as well as its prevalence. This paper investigates naive diversification heuristics using Australian member level investment choice data over a six year period, 2001 to 2006. Results suggest a strong preference for using a small number of options in investment choices. There is little evidence to support the 'pure' 1/n heuristic (Benartzi and Thaler, 2001). However when multiple options are selected, one-third are classified as conditional 1/n (Huberman and Jiang, 2006). The proportion of choices classified as conditional 1/n is strongly related to the number of options used in the choice. The possible consequence of menu framing on asset class allocation is investigated and does not support an influence of menu on effective allocations, at least in terms of equity exposure.","PeriodicalId":412898,"journal":{"name":"Finsia-Australian Centre for Financial Studies Banking & Finance Conference 2010 (Archive)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130952883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Insurance and Economic Growth: A Cross Country Examination","authors":"Yen Ngoc Nguyen, Katherine Avram, M. Skully","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1646757","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1646757","url":null,"abstract":"While insurance plays an important role in the financial sector, it is often ignored in the financial development-economic growth literature. This paper examines the relationship between insurance and economic growth via a global cross-country study over 1980 to 2006, using both cross-sectional estimations and dynamic panel data techniques. We find a significant positive relationship between economic growth and overall insurance, as well as more specifically for life and non-life insurance. We find weak evidence that a country’s stage of development may influence this relationship; but strong evidence that the quality of a country’s legal system and protection of property rights is positively related to insurance growth. The study adds to the existing literature in respect to the legal factors as well as offers further support for the role of insurance in the finance-growth literature.","PeriodicalId":412898,"journal":{"name":"Finsia-Australian Centre for Financial Studies Banking & Finance Conference 2010 (Archive)","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126365169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}