N°24-72: Who Invests in What? Public Firms Ownership Around the World

We construct a comprehensive database of public firm ownership in 49 countries and study the investment scope and preferences of different types of investors. Aggregate home bias has declined but is still much higher in emerging markets (EMs). Institutions have become more globally diversified but invest in a limited number of stocks. Retail investors remain highly home-biased. Institutions of different domiciles and types continue to show a strong preference for larger, more liquid, and more visible firms in both pooled regressions and country-level analyses but exhibit considerably heterogeneous preferences for other firm characteristics. Retail investors are mostly present in small and illiquid firms.