This paper examines whether biased income expectations due to overconfidence lead to higher levels of debt-taking. We show suggestive evidence for a link between overconfidence and borrowing behavior in a representative survey of German households (GSOEP-IS). This motivates a laboratory...

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...

This research challenges the stylized fact of a gender gap in financial literacy, i.e. the finding that women lag behind men in this respect. Our data which samples middle-class people from Bangkok does not show a gender gap, neither in regards to financial literacy nor regarding various kinds...

Our study aims to uncover the roots of financial literacy. Better financial literacy predicts more informed savings and borrowing decisions in our sample, covering the urban middle-class in an emerging economy. We then test education at school, family background, parental teaching, and childhood...

Why do some people make better financial decisions than others do? The level of financial literacy plays an important role: Quality schooling that also deals with financial issues likewise leads to better financial decisions. However, many studies neglect how parenting also influences financial...

Warum treffen manche Leute bessere finanzielle Entscheidungen als andere? Eine wichtige Rolle spielt dabei das Niveau der Finanzbildung. Eine gute Schulbildung, die sich auch mit wirtschaftlichen Fragestellungen auseinandersetzt, führt ebenfalls zu besseren Finanzentscheidungen. Viele Studien...

Financial literacy predicts informed financial decisions, but what explains financial literacy? We use the concept of financial socialization and aim to represent three major agents of financial socialization: family, school and work. Thus we compile twelve relevant childhood characteristics in...

We study the literature on school financial education programs for children and youth via a quantitative meta-analysis of 37 (quasi-) experiments. We find that financial education treatment has, on average, a significant and sizeable impact on financial knowledge (+0.25 SD), similar to...

We conduct a randomized field experiment to study the effects of two financial education interventions offered to small-scale retailers in Uganda. The treatments contrast "active learning" with "traditional lecturing" within standardized lesson-plans. We find that active learning has a positive...

In a meta-analysis of 126 impact evaluation studies, we find that financial education significantly impacts financial behavior and, to an even larger extent, financial literacy. These results also hold for the subsample of randomized experiments (RCTs). However, intervention impacts are highly...