The last decade has been an era characterized by historic financial events such as tech bubbles, real estate bubbles, stock market crashes, and vast corporate scandals. Thus, following the financial turmoil of the early twenty-first century, the literature has attracted growing interest in how young individuals, who had just begun to interact with credit markets and accumulate assets, fared in the wake of the Great Recession. More specifically, the dramatic shock of the 2008 financial crisis was an event that traumatized individual investors, while the confusion following the crisis fertilized high levels of uncertainty that radically changed individual perceptions of risk and stock markets , causing some investors to completely shy away from equity investments. While signs of today's economic recovery and improvements in financial markets may have spurred some investors' investment and risk appetite before the crisis, empirical evidence suggests otherwise, especially for younger age groups. Furthermore, according to the literature, financial well-being early in life has crucial implications for the accumulation of wealth throughout life. However, it has been argued that today's young adults are less financially independent than young adults of previous generations of the same age, a statement perhaps made due to the large percentage of young people still living with a parent. In addition to this, empirical research reports that younger generations have accumulated less wealth than their parents at the same age. Therefore, this delayed financial independence among young adults has raised concerns about the likely phenomena of negative effects on economic growth and aggregate consumer spending. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Additionally, consumers' choices to buy a home, take on debt, or invest in the stock market indicate expectations about future personal circumstances and the macroeconomy many years into the future. In contrast to traditional economic models that assume that people's preferences remain unchanged by the economic incidents they experience throughout their lives, modern literature suggests that experiences leave emotional marks on future decision-making and tend to shape individual risk tolerance more than factors traditional socioeconomic theories than conventional theories. suggest. Therefore, there is general disagreement in the literature regarding the long-term implications of macroeconomic shocks such as the financial crisis on investor expectations and willingness to invest in stock markets. Based on varying studies, it has been argued that major economic and political events that people go through during their formative years can create distinctive sets of generational identities in terms of expectations, values and beliefs, emphasizing that recent events affect young people on a larger scale as they have shorter life histories or less financial experience and knowledge. Furthermore, existing research highlights the importance of studying individuals who are just starting to build their lifelong investment preferences and tendencies, typically referring to people in their twenties. The purpose of the present study is to investigate whether young adults today exhibit significantly different risk attitudes than their counterparts from previous generations due to the experience of the financial crisis.
tags