a specific example of account segregation. Although dollars
are fungible, people have a tendency to compartmentalize
money for different goals. Households are much less likely
to withdraw money from a savings account designated for
the down payment on a home than they are to withdraw from
a checking account, even if the balance in each account is
the same. Economic theory indicates that money should be
fungible, but household behavior indicates it is not (Thaler,
2004). The process of separating funds by purpose in and
of itself does not imply a change in the risk tolerance of the
household. A household with two checking accounts and three
savings accounts may be no more or less risk tolerant than a
household with one checking and savings account. However,
given the correlation between investing and risk tolerance, it
would be reasonable to expect households with a brokerage or
investment account to be more risk tolerant than households
without such accounts.
Framing has to do with the way people’s attitudes can change
based upon how information is presented to them (Tversky
& Kahneman, 1981). How people think about saving and
investing could determine their willingness to postpone
consumption. In addition, how a person is paid, receiving the
same amount of income each pay period, or earning irregular
amounts at irregular intervals, could influence risk tolerance.
Shefrin and Thaler (1988) show that people have a different
marginal propensity to consume regular income versus bonus
income. Risk tolerance could be related to a person’s comfort
with variable income. Therefore, someone who chooses
self-employment or an occupation that has significant income
variability could be expected to have higher risk tolerance
than someone who is employed in a job with a regular income
and employee benefits. On the other hand, households with
unpredictable income may feel the need to maintain a large
emergency fund and therefore may appear to be less risk
tolerant. It is anticipated that framing will be related to risk
tolerance, but the effect could be either positive or negative
due to how the individual perceives income variability.
Hypotheses
The BLC constructs of self-control and framing are likely to
be significantly associated with financial risk tolerance. It is
unclear if the practice of separating assets into different ment