Patterns of Asset Ownership

The aim of this chapter is to describe how individuals use different patterns of asset ownerships to develop and manage their wealth. The chapter analyzes the main theories behind the spending Vs saving behaviors and summarizes the key results from a set of empirical studies. The factors that influence the decision to save and that drives the choice of the assets used to allocate personal resources are many. Some of them concerns socio-demographic characteristics like age, gender, income, and education. Other sources of influence regard taxation and the social welfare. The way individuals develop the structure of their asset ownership depends by a mix of factors that evolves over time and that see these factors to interact each other. The awareness of the different patterns and the role of different factors able to shape those patterns can help professionals to understand the real needs of the investors, but they are useful to policy makers too, that will have a more clear view of the possible reactions of individuals to certain policies.