Improving Financial Literacy: From Corporate Finance to Personal Finance

Annamaria Lusardi

No 21845, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This article provides an overview of the literature on financial literacy. It covers the initial measurement that created the Big Three questions and measures of personal finance knowledge featuring 28 questions. It shows that levels of financial literacy are low and have not been improving over time. This is true not only in the United States but also in countries worldwide. These findings matter because financial literacy is conducive to savvy financial behaviors, from holding precautionary savings to planning for retirement to many other financial decisions. Financial education programs have grown exponentially over time, providing important insights into their cost-effectiveness. Personal finance courses have been added to high school and college curricula, and the evidence indicates that they are useful initiatives to improve financial knowledge and downstream behavior.

Keywords: Financial; literacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP21845 (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:cpr:ceprdp:21845

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP21845

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().