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Financial Literacy and Economic Outcomes: Evidence and Policy Implications
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This paper reviews what we have learned over the past decade about financial literacy and its relationship to financial decision-making around the world. Using three questions, we have surveyed people in several countries to determine whether they have the fundamental knowledge of economics and finance needed to function as effective decision-makers. We find that levels of financial literacy are low not only in the United States. but also in many other countries including those with well-developed financial markets. Moreover, financial illiteracy is particularly acute for some demographic groups, especially women and the less-educated. These findings are important since financial literacy is linked to borrowing, saving, and spending patterns. We also offer new evidence on financial literacy among high school students drawing on the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment implemented in 18 countries. Last, we discuss the implications of this research for policy.
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“Financial literacy is found to have the strongest impact in the Netherlands, where knowing the right answer to one additional financial literacy question is associated with a 10 percentage point higher probability of planning (Mitchell and Lusardi, 2015).”
From Financial literacy and the need for financial education: evidence and implications (2019) · cites this paper as Mitchell and Lusardi, 2015
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Citations
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Financial literacy and the need for financial education: evidence and implications
Lusardi, A. (2019) · Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics · doi:10.1186/s41937-019-0027-5 · Cited by 1,135
“Financial literacy is found to have the strongest impact in the Netherlands, where knowing the right answer to one additional financial literacy question is associated with a 10 percentage point higher probability of planning (Mitchell and Lusardi, 2015).”
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“Financial skill is conceptualized as the numerical and cognitive abilities of individuals, which may encourage them to analyze information, gain new skills, and even search the market for what is available (Lusardi 2012; Mitchell and Lusardi 2015).”
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“Even though it is impossible to distinguish age and cohort effects on financial literacy level here, similar results are found, an inverted U-shaped pattern of financial literacy, especially for Uruguay, Turkey and Colombia with respect to the previous findings studied for the countries such as Germany, Romania, Switz…”
ResultInfluential
Metadata
- Authors
- Mitchell, O. S., & Lusardi, A.
- Affiliations
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- George Washington University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lusardi, Annamaria
- Venue
- The Journal of Retirement
- Publisher
- With Intelligence LLC
- Published
- 2015-06-30
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 107-114
- ISSN
- 2326-6899 (ISSN-L)
- 2326-6902
- PMC
- PMC5445906
- OpenAlex
- W3122426078
- Cited by
- 235
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 4
- FWCI
- 42.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Journal of Retirement (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (U01AG009740)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Financial Literacy and Behavior
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- financial literacy, financial decision-making, financial illiteracy, economic knowledge, gender differences, educational attainment, household borrowing, saving and spending, high school students, PISA, financial education policy
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