Financial Literacy and Asset Behaviour: Poor Education and Zero for Conduct?

Luc Arrondel

Comparative Economic Studies, 2018, vol. 60, issue 1, No 12, 144-160

Abstract: Abstract Financial Literacy is a specific component of human capital which allows individual to deal with fundamental financial issues so as to take adequate financial decisions. After presenting the theoretical foundations of this notion, establishing its definition and reviewing the empirical literature, this paper presents recent studies about the link between financial literacy and financial decisions of the population in France using an original survey. The results suggest that financial literacy varies across the population. It is correlated with education but also with gender, age and political affiliation. This last point could reflect differences in opinion regarding the role of welfare state and individual responsibility. Finally, the link between financial literacy and some financial behaviors (the propensity to formulate a specific financial plan in the long run on the one hand and the propensity to own stocks on the other hand) is evaluated: in both cases positive correlations with financial literacy variables are found. We conclude with a reflection on the relative status of financial education to explain the investments of households and judge the effectiveness of training programs in the economic culture.

Keywords: Financial literacy; Wealth; Saving; Stock participation puzzle; Propensity to plan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 D84 D91 G18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41294-018-0053-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Financial Literacy and Asset Behaviour: Poor Education and Zero for Conduct? (2018)
Working Paper: Financial Literacy and Asset Behaviour: Poor Education and Zero for Conduct? (2018)
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:pal:compes:v:60:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41294-018-0053-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/41294/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41294-018-0053-9

Access Statistics for this article

Comparative Economic Studies is currently edited by Nauro Campos

More articles in Comparative Economic Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Association for Comparative Economic Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().