Impact of demographic and economic variables on financial policy purchase timing decisions

This paper investigates the extent to which consumers' demographic factors influence their financial policy purchasing behaviours and also explores how the external economic environment affects consumers' propensities to purchase financial products. The Cox proportional hazard model is used to explore these issues. The results suggest that consumer decisions on the timing of financial product purchases are largely explained by changes in the economic environment in terms of stock market, the housing market, average earnings, consumer confidence, and interest rates. The influence of customer demographic factors is also important but secondary.