Rural Households' Attitude toward Increasing Financial Risk, and Changes in Portfolio Selection and Demand for Insurance

Abstract

　This article estimated the effects of rural households' attitude toward increasing portfolio risk through changes in portfolio selection and demand for insurance using mail survey data.
　Although the majority of respondents did not change their portfolio selection, it was shown that people with stronger concerns over increasing financial risk behaved as risk averters.
　Because the ratio of respondents who canceled their insurance policies was comparatively high, demand functions for insurance were estimated for three different insurance suppliers, Seiho, Kanpo and JA, using the Tobit Type 2 model. The results indicated that, as a whole, concerns over financial risk did not have a large impact on insurance expenses, but Seiho users have stronger concerns over financial market risk than Kanpo and JA users.
　Demand functions for insurance were also estimated using a neural network model (Multi Layer Perceptron). The model improved the estimation error, and gave a more visual and detailed presentation to explain variable relationships.