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Working Paper
Bank crises and investor confidence
In addition to their direct effects, episodes of financial instability may decrease investor confidence. Measuring the impact of a crisis on investor confidence is complicated by the fact that it is difficult to disentangle the effect of investor confidence from coincident direct effects of the crisis. In order to isolate the effects of financial crises on investor confidence, we study the investment behavior of immigrants in the U.S. Our findings indicate that systemic banking crises have important effects on investor behavior. Immigrants who have experienced a banking crisis in their ...
Working Paper
Institutional quality and financial market development: evidence from international migrants in the U.S.
A growing body of theoretical and empirical work identifies the ability of a country?s institutions to protect private property and provide incentives for investment as a key explanation for the persistent disparity in financial market development. We add to this literature by analyzing the impact of institutions on financial development using data on the financial decisions of immigrants and the native-born in the U.S. While all of the individuals whose decisions we analyze face the same formal institutional framework in the U.S., immigrants bring with them varied experiences with ...
Conference Paper
Prospects for immigrant-native wealth assimilation: evidence from financial market participation
Because financial transactions are important for wealth accumulation, and rely on trust and confidence in institutions, the financial market behavior of immigrants can provide important insights into the assimilation process. Compared to the native-born, immigrants are less likely to own savings and checking accounts and these differences tend to persist over time. Our results suggest that a large share of the immigrant-native gap in financial market participation is driven by group differences in education, income, and geographic location. For a given immigrant, the likelihood of financial ...
Working Paper
Prospects for immigrant-native wealth assimilation: evidence from financial market participation
Because financial transactions are important for wealth accumulation, and rely on trust and confidence in institutions, the financial market behavior of immigrants can provide important insights into the assimilation process. Compared to the native-born, immigrants are less likely to own savings and checking accounts and these differences tend to persist over time. Our results suggest that a large share of the immigrant-native gap in financial market participation is driven by group differences in education, income, and geographic location. For a given immigrant, the likelihood of financial ...
Working Paper
What can we learn about financial access from U.S. immigrants?
We find that wealthier and more educated immigrants are more likely to make use of basic banking services and other formal financial services. Holding these (and other) factors constant, we find immigrants from countries with more effective institutions are more likely to have a relationship with a bank and use formal financial markets more extensively. Institutional quality appears to be an important factor in both determining both the breadth and the depth of financial access. It can explain approximately 17 percent of the country-of- origin-level variation in bank account usage among ...