While Americans’ long-term financial security is essential, a target deserving of equal – if not more – attention has been overlooked, namely short-term financial security. A large number of U.S. households are financially fragile today, and their well-being as well as that of the entire economy rests on households’ capacity to deal with shocks.…Read More
Brokers, financial advice providers, and many others need to test peoples’ ability to manage their money. Nevertheless, there are some who debate such tests arguing that they aren’t useful for predicting behavior. But our work has confirmed that there actually IS a short and very effective diagnostic financial literacy test that can be used to measure financial know-how and predict behavior.…Read More
Since 2000, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OEDC) has assessed the reading, math, and science knowledge of 15-year-olds around the world every three years. More recently, since 2012, the program has also measured teen’s financial literacy. The latest findings just released by the OECDs provided small – but consequential – reasons for celebration.…Read More
In our new research study which interviewed participants across 10 European countries, our team working with Annamaria Lusardi has demonstrated that financial and risk literacy leads to better choices when it comes to making decisions and identifying the right paths to our financial goals. We also show that the impact of financial and risk literacy on decision-making goes above and beyond that of education. And as in Olivia S. Mitchell’s recent findings, we confirm that women and millennials are least informed when it comes to financial and risk literacy.…Read More
Many American households will face a significant retirement financing gap unless they save more, invest more efficiently, retire later, and/or distribute their retirement assets more efficiently. Yet the pain of such difficult behavioral changes might be mitigated by better use of an asset that almost 80 percent of retirees have: the family home.…Read More
Pundits keep a close watch on the U.S. Federal Reserve as it meets to raise interest rates after seven years of effectively zero rates. Yet the reality is that many Americans know little about interest rates, and much less about the implications of a rate hike for their finances! This was one key finding from the recently released S&P Global FinLit Survey, gathered with the support of McGraw Hill Financial.…Read More
While many Americans are focused on providing a financially successful retirement for themselves, I believe that we also should also be aware of the importance of retirement wellness.…Read More
Baby Boomer women – now in their 50’s and 60’s – are doing worse financially than older women in the 1990s. My new research with Professor Annamaria Lusardi explains why, using national representative survey data from the Health and Retirement Study and the National Financial Capability Study. We track changes in older women’s work plans and debt burdens, along with the links to financial literacy and debt stressors.…Read More
April is Financial Literacy Month. You might suspect there is a problem with financial literacy in America, if an entire month is dedicated to it! And you would be right.…Read More
Older women confront many retirement security challenges. For one thing, women live longer than do men, so their money must stretch farther. For another, many average fewer years in the paid workforce and, when they do work, their average pay is often lower. Additionally, they are more likely to work part-time, for a lower salary. These factors all translate into lower retirement accumulations, smaller retirement payouts, and higher poverty rates in old age, as reported in a recent Society of Actuaries 2014 study “Impact of Retirement Risk on Women.”…Read More
