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This paper investigates the portfolio structure of private households in Germany from 1994 to 2014. We focus on the question of how sensitively private households react to a shock in the interest rate level. We use a vector autoregressive model and analyze the corresponding impulse-response functions. The data set is provided by Deutsche Bundesbank. Our hypothesis that the asset class Insurance reacts less sensitively to changes in the interest rate level than other asset classes cannot be confirmed. In general, the results show almost no reactions in the portfolio proportions after an interest rate shock. From our results, it appears that private households in Germany clearly do not integrate interest rate information into their portfolio allocation decisions.

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