Financial literacy, information flows, and caste affiliation: Empirical evidence from India

Werner Bönte () and Ute Filipiak

Journal of Banking & Finance, 2012, vol. 36, issue 12, 3399-3414

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates the relevance of social interaction and caste affiliation for individual awareness of financial instruments and investment behavior of households in India. The results of our empirical analysis, which is based on a large scale survey on saving patterns of Indians, suggest a positive relationship between financial literacy and social interaction. However, especially backward caste people living in regions with a large fraction of backward castes have a lower probability of being aware of various financial instruments. In contrast, we find only weak empirical evidence for a direct effect of caste affiliation and social interaction on investment behavior.

Keywords: Financial literacy; Social interaction; Social networks; Indian caste system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G14 R2 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:36:y:2012:i:12:p:3399-3414

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.07.028

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