How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness

Annamaria Lusardi () and Olivia Mitchell

No 15350, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper reports on several self-assessed and objective measures of financial literacy newly added to the American Life Panel (ALP), and it links these performance measures to efforts consumers make to plan for retirement. We evaluate the causal relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning by exploiting information about respondents' financial knowledge acquired in school - before entering the labor market and certainly before starting to plan for retirement. Results show that those with more advanced financial knowledge are those more likely to be retirement-ready.

JEL-codes: D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-lab
Note: AG
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (174)

Published as Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2017. "How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(03), pages 1-31, September.

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Related works:
Journal Article: How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness (2017)
Working Paper: How ordinary consumers make complex economic decisions: Financial literacy and retirement readiness (2010)
Working Paper: How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness (2009)
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