Personal Financial Literacy Among High School Students in New Zealand, Japan and the United States

Michael Cameron, Richard Calderwood (), Ashleigh Cox (), Steven Lim () and Michio Yamaoka ()
Additional contact information
Richard Calderwood: University of Waikato
Ashleigh Cox: University of Waikato
Steven Lim: University of Waikato
Michio Yamaoka: Waseda University

Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato

Abstract: Personal financial literacy is becoming increasingly important in the modern world, especially for young people. In this paper we compare financial literacy of high school students in Hamilton, New Zealand, with samples from Japan and the United States. We compare not only overall financial literacy, but also literacy across five dimensions (or ‘themes’) of financial literacy, and across three cognitive levels. We find that financial literacy is poor overall in all three countries, but is substantially worse in New Zealand and the United States than in Japan. The performance is similar across themes and cognitive levels for U.S. and New Zealand students, but Japanese students perform better mostly in terms of their greater knowledge of terminology and definitions, rather than better comprehension and ability to apply their knowledge. This suggests that all three countries should work harder to develop the financial literacy of their high school students.

Keywords: financial literacy; New Zealand; Japan; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A21 D14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2013-03-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wai:econwp:13/04

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