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IZA Discussion Paper No. 16976
May 2024
Business Education and Portfolio Returns
Adam Altmejd, Thomas Jansson, Yigitcan Karabulut

Using university admission cutoffs that generate exogenous variation in college-major choices, we provide causal evidence that enrollment in a business or economics program leads individuals to invest significantly more in the stock market, earn higher portfolio returns, and ultimately accumulate higher levels of wealth later in life. Underlying these effects, beyond differences in risk-taking, innate ability, labor market outcomes, or scale effects, is the enhanced ability of business educated individuals to acquire and process economic information and make informed investment decisions. Early investments in financial literacy thus play an important role in generating higher returns that significantly alter individuals' life-cycle wealth profiles.

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Mark Fallak
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Olga Nottmeyer
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+352 585-855-501
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Christina Gathmann
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The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

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