Niculaescu Corina E, Sangiorgi Ivan, Bell Adrian R
ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6BA, UK.
Int Rev Financ Anal. 2023 Jul;88:102703. doi: 10.1016/j.irfa.2023.102703. Epub 2023 May 29.
This paper explores the link between personal experience with COVID-19 and US retail investors' financial decision-making during the first COVID-19 wave. Do retail investors that have personally experienced COVID-19 change their investments after the pandemic outbreak, and if so, why? We use a cross-sectional dataset from an online survey of US retail investors collected in July and August 2020 to assess if and how respondents change their investment decisions after the COVID-19 outbreak. On average retail investors increase their investments during the first wave of COVID-19 by 4.7%, while many of them decrease their investments suggesting a high heterogeneity of investor behaviours. We provide the first evidence that personal experience with the virus can have unexpected positive effects on retail investments. Investors who have personal experience with COVID-19, who are in a vulnerable health category, who tested positive, and who know someone in their close circle of friends or family who died because of COVID-19, increase their investments by 12%. We explain our findings through terror management theory, salience theory and optimism bias, suggesting that reminders of mortality, focussing on selective salient investment information, and over-optimism despite personal vulnerable health contribute to the increase in retail investments. Increased levels of savings, saving goals and risk capacity are also positively associated with increased investments. Our findings are relevant to investors, regulators, and financial advisors, and highlight the importance of providing retail investors with access to investment opportunities in periods of unprecedented shocks such as COVID-19.
本文探讨了个人感染新冠病毒的经历与美国散户投资者在新冠疫情第一波期间的财务决策之间的联系。亲身经历过新冠病毒感染的散户投资者在疫情爆发后是否会改变他们的投资行为？如果是，原因是什么？我们使用了一个横截面数据集，该数据集来自于2020年7月和8月对美国散户投资者进行的在线调查，以评估受访者在新冠疫情爆发后是否以及如何改变他们的投资决策。平均而言，散户投资者在新冠疫情第一波期间将投资增加了4.7%，而他们中的许多人却减少了投资，这表明投资者行为存在高度异质性。我们首次提供证据表明，感染病毒的个人经历可能会对散户投资产生意想不到的积极影响。有过新冠病毒感染个人经历、属于易感染健康类别、检测呈阳性以及在亲密朋友圈或家人中有因新冠病毒去世者的投资者，其投资增加了12%。我们通过恐惧管理理论、显著性理论和乐观偏差来解释我们的发现，表明对死亡的提醒、关注选择性突出的投资信息以及尽管个人健康易受影响但过度乐观导致了散户投资的增加。储蓄水平、储蓄目标和风险承受能力的提高也与投资增加呈正相关。我们的研究结果对投资者、监管机构和金融顾问具有参考价值，并突出了在新冠疫情等前所未有的冲击时期为散户投资者提供投资机会的重要性。
