Home tenure, stock market participation, and composition of the household portfolio

In this study, we empirically analyze the simultaneous decisions of households to participate in the stock market and/or own their home. A vast literature stream exists on decisions to buy or rent a home, and many contributions report the low participation rate of American households in the US stock market. Numerous authors have also provided evidence that home tenure (modeled as an exogenous variable) affects the share of household portfolios held as stocks. However, the present study is the first to allow decisions on homeownership and stockholding to be simultaneous and endogenous. We use a dynamic bivariate logistic panel data model on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data from 1999 to 2007, controlling for sample selection bias and time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity. These estimates allow us to simulate the individual paths of homeownership and stockholding status over whole life cycles, according to household characteristics. Ceteris paribus, we show that households acquiring one asset (either home or stocks) acquire the other at an earlier stage in their life cycles, implying that some households become trapped in a no-stockholding, renting position.