Financial literacy: A barrier to seek financial advice but not a shield against following it

Julia Sprenger

No 634, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: The current study examines individual decision making in the field of personal finance. How do people arrive at a financial decision? A laboratory experiment investigates the way external information is integrated into the decision-making process. Financial literacy shows to lower demand for financial advice but it does not immunize against sunk cost fallacies: High financial literate subjects are not less likely to follow financial advice than less literate subjects, even when the quality of advice is moderate. Overconfidence biases the perceived need for information. Both results point to difficulties in making an informed choice.

Keywords: Financial literacy; overconfidence; financial decision making; experiment; advice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 G02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/145103/1/866083839.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:634

DOI: 10.4419/86788738

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().