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...

Achieving a state of being financially satisfied is a more feasible aim than becoming debt-free, which requires well strategized economic behaviors over one’s life cycle. Furthermore, financial satisfaction can describe an individual’s perception concerning his/her current financial...

During the last two decades financial education has become more and more important due to a large variety of economic and demographic changes. It is commonly considered an essential tool for consumer empowerment and a critical prerequisite for sound, efficient and transparent financial markets....

Financial education is a key intervention strategy in improving consumers’ financial knowledge, but exogenous factors such as cultural differences and socio-economic factors can also affect the levels of financial knowledge. On using an ordered probit model on primary data comprising...

The authors reflect on reform options concerning the funded old age provision. Starting from the political debate on the current state of the German old age security system they sum up the critique concerning the funded old age provision especially the Riester-pension. Three reform options that...

Many households have insufficient savings to handle moderate and routine consumption shocks. Many of these financially-fragile households also have the highest lottery expenditures as a proportion of income. This combination suggests that Prize-Linked Savings (PLS) accounts, combining security...

Two factors that have received limited attention in poverty dynamic studies are the role of risk in causing poverty mobility and attrition bias. Controlling for the attrition bias, we study poverty dynamics in urban Ethiopia with an emphasis on the effect of idiosyncratic shocks and informal...

Many households have insufficient savings to handle moderate and routine consumption shocks. Many of these financially fragile households also have the highest lottery expenditures as a proportion of income. This combination suggests that prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, combining security...

We study the association between smoking status and individual decisions, focusing on outcomes in the domain of personal finance. The study draws information on demographic variables, various financial outcomes including individual credit scores, time and risk preferences, and personality...

In this paper, we present an alternate proposal for house finance. In our proposal, the Islamic bank buys the house paying the house owner the full amount of the house and becomes the owner. Then, the bank gives the house on rent to the client and the Islamic bank also enters into an options...