We investigate the role of banks information policies in fostering the accumulation of financial knowledge. In Italy, banks belonging to the PattiChiari Consortium implement policies aimed at increasing transparency and procedural simplification, without offering services at lower cost with...

We investigate the causal effect of financial literacy on financial assets, exploiting banks information policies for identification. In Italy, banks who belong to the PattiChiari consortium have implemented policies aimed at increasing transparency and procedural simplification. These policies...

Microeconomic data on households are providing increasingly important information for many economic policy issues. This study presents the results of a survey conducted by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank on Austrian households’ financial wealth. The descriptive presentation of household...

This paper analyzes the state and impact of financial literacy in a so far largely neglected group: the middle class in emerging economies. This group is of increasing importance for implementing structural change, including the proper use of sophisticated financial products. We survey middle...

Financial literacy and the need to improve it are getting more attention as a result of the economic crisis. The effectiveness of the programmes that target the improvement of financial literacy depends on knowing what factors influence people’s financial knowledge. This is exactly the reason...

We study the portfolio allocation decisions of Australian households using the relatively new Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. We focus on household allocations to risky financial assets. Our empirical analysis considers a range of hypothesised determinants of...

We study the portfolio allocation decisions of Australian households using the relatively new Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. We focus on household allocations to risky financial assets. Our empirical analysis considers a range of hypothesised determinants of...

omen typically participate less than men in the stock market, while also scoring lower on financial literacy. We explore the link between the gender gap in stock market participation and financial literacy. Using survey data on a random sample of 1,300 individuals that is representative of the...

This article analyzes the manifold situations in which the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) has influenced—or has failed to influence—federal securities regulation and state corporate law, and the prospective roles for the EMH in these contexts. In federal securities regulation, the EMH has...

This paper analyses the role played by financial literacy in savings decisions and wealth decumulation. The broad evidence shows that (elderly) households do not decumulate their assets as they age, contradicting the standard life-cycle theory, which predicts that households should decumulate...