This study investigates the effects of households' income, financial portfolios on their financial market investments, income from financial investments and overall household income and the eventual financial default risks of households in Korea with ...
This study investigates the effects of households' income, financial portfolios on their financial market investments, income from financial investments and overall household income and the eventual financial default risks of households in Korea with a variety of factors from the database of the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study (KLIPS) from 1996 to 2019, excluding only a very few exorbitant outliers. By applying fixed effects multivariate regression models (FEMM), fixed effects logit regression models (FELM), instrumental variable (IV) models, etc., we have found the following results.
First, the households with their own house and those with primary members with college degrees have a higher proportion of investments in the financial market, while those with higher income volatility also have a higher proportion of investments in the financial market. In addition, based on the results of instrumental variable models for robustness checking, we have found that those with a larger proportion in savings and personal lending, and those with a higher proportion of financial income relative to total household’s income have a higher proportion of investment in financial assets.
Second, the risk of household insolvency increases for those with self-employed businesses. Such risks increase for households with those with more amount invested in their self-employed businesses, a lower share of wage income, real estate income, financial income to total household’s income, and those with lower aggregate income.
Considering that Korean households' financial portfolios are vulnerable to global and/or local financial shocks for those households with a higher portion of their assets in the form of real assets, higher level of debt, and lower financial soundness of self-employed households, domestic and foreign financial shocks can lead to a severe financial crisis. Therefore, the government should come up with fundamental measures to improve households’ debt management and their financial or portfolio structure before implementing the policy of curbing household loans, and educate them accordingly so that their asset portfolio can in effect improve.
While the results of this study convey various important information regarding the financial investment activities of households, not provided by earlier studies, it still has a long way to explore wider and deeper topics in personal finance. In the future studies, governmental policies must be also reflected in the financing and investment activities of individuals and households. Research should consider comprehensively the effects of government policies and household members’ responses toward such changes in the government policies on households’ income, vulnerability and default risks.