OECD Statistics Working Papers

ISSN :: 1815-2031 (online)
DOI :: 10.1787/18152031

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The OECD Statistics Working Paper Series - managed by the OECD Statistics Directorate – is designed to make available in a timely fashion and to a wider readership selected studies prepared by staff in the Secretariat or by outside consultants working on OECD projects. The papers included are of a technical, methodological or statistical policy nature and relate to statistical work relevant to the organisation. The Working Papers are generally available only in their original language - English or French - with a summary in the other.

Do Financial Systems Converge?

New Evidence from Household Financial Assets in Selected OECD Countries

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Authors:

Giuseppe Bruno¹, Riccardo De Bonis¹

Author Affiliations

1: Banque of Italy, Italy

Publication Date

25 Feb 2009

Bibliographic information

No:: 2009/01

Pages

DOI

10.1787/224175173554

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Many authors underlined the convergence of financial structures towards a model which combines elements of the Anglo Saxon one, where markets prevail, with characteristics of the continental European systems, where intermediaries are predominant. The goal of this paper is to study financial systems convergence through the lens of household asset allocation. We analyze s and ß convergence of total household financial assets and their main components: deposits, securities other than shares, shares and other equity, insurance technical reserves. The novelty of the paper is to exploit a database containing time series since 1980 for nine OECD countries. Using disposable income as a scale variable, we found convergence of household total financial assets, insurance technical reserves and shares and other equity. Weaker results are obtained for convergence of household securities other than shares, and currency and deposits. In a nutshell, financial systems show signals of convergence in asset allocation, but national characteristics persist when households invest in securities and deposits.

Keywords:: financial systems, alpha and beta convergence

JEL Classification:

G10: Financial Economics / General Financial Markets / General
G20: Financial Economics / Financial Institutions and Services / General