개인투자자들의 위험자산 및 안전자산 선택요인 분석

We investigate the factors that influence the allocation of financial assets by individual investors who directly hold stocks or other financial products. For this purpose, this study analyzed the “Investor Survey on Investment Practices” conducted jointly by the Korea Financial Investment Association and the Korea Gallup Survey Research Institute. We find that the investors in this study allocated approximately 40% of their total assets to financial assets. This proportion is more than 15%pt higher than the one reported in the “Household Finance and Welfare Survey,” which was conducted with the general population as its target by Statistics Korea. Furthermore, the proportion of assets in direct investments is about 36% of the total financial assets, which is over ten times higher than the 3.1% reported in the “the Survey of Household Finance and Living Conditions”. In essence, investors with experience in direct investments show a strong preference for allocating financial assets to risky assets in comparison to the general population. Consequently, it can be inferred that the experience of investing risky assets itself is significantly associated with the higher proportion of risky assets by individual investors. Female investors exhibit a stronger preference for indirect investments, such as mutual funds and insurance/pension products, compared to male investors. This suggests that females tend to be more risk-averse and perform better diversification across their overall financial assets than males. Moreover, as the size of financial assets increases, the allocation of risky (risk-free) assets decreases (increases). These results are statistically and economically significant in both correlation analysis and regression analysis accounting for various variables.