The article uses the example of financial services to demonstrate the relevance of consumer policy for the market. It discusses the recent political approach to consumer protection and their effectiveness in relation to financial services and the retail credit market. Of greatest importance was...

The knowledge economy puts higher pressure on young Canadians to pursue higher education. The goals of the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) have focused on providing prospective students with affordable savings options and financial support for post secondary education. However, the RESP...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the idea currently rampant in the mainstream economics literature that it is relative rather than real income that is of most importance for individual well-being and that both evidence on expressed happiness and individual “choices” in...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to establish an original database from fieldwork on microfinance institutions in Cameroon. Design/methodology/approach – The main method used for the research involved statistical analysis of an original survey data. The latter fieldwork analysis has...

House and flat prices have been through a tremendous bust and boom cycle in Denmark. From 1986 to 1993 real prices for houses and flats dropped by one third on average, foreclosures accounted for around 1/6 of the house and flat turnovers in numbers, and in reality the market for owner-occupied...

Although consumer finance is a substantial element of the economy, it has had a smaller footprint within financial economics. In this review, I suggest a functional definition of the subfield of consumer finance, focusing on four key functions: payments, risk management, moving funds from today...

Using a new nationally representative survey of financial capability and experience in the UK and Ireland, I investigate the key factors that cause individuals to experience financial distress. In this context, a key area that I focus on is whether individuals’ behavioural traits, such as...

Purpose – To research the gender literature in order to determine whether it is advisable for a financial advisor to adjust their planning and advising processes based on the gender of their client. Design/methodology/approach – To correlate the gender literature with the personal financial...

We use panel data from the Swiss Labor Force Survey to estimate age-earnings profiles as well as transitory and permanent income shock variances for investor groups distinguished by gender, education and activity rate. Estimation results are then used to stylize several different Swiss investor...