hahaha love this story! We need to account for personality as well, what we think is worth spending our money on may not match our kids' ideas.
On the opposite spectrum, I was concerned about having made my oldest too cautious about spending money when she started to cry after regreting the purchase of a 2 pounds pen on a trip. I guess we've all been there!
I also say that we save money in order to spend it eventually. But I think she regretted spending money on that pen, and was in doubt if it was worth it or if she should have waited to find something she liked more. At least she is thinking about trade offs.
Oh, parenting. This was hilarious. After watching my grandkids and their differing attitudes to spending even being raised in the same household, I wonder if there is a way to select for personality types as well. That would certainly be complicated and I can't imagine how to do it.
I'm generally all for evidence based research, but after reading the abstract shared by the researcher below, it made me realize how many assumptions we make based on the lens we view financial decisions as to whether or not it is a "good" decision. I have met with hundreds of clients of financial advisors (I'm not an advisor, I am a CFP) and anecdotally, improving financial literacy works. I am often complimented by these clients on my ability to take complex (to them) concepts, full of jargon, and break it down to understandable and more importantly, actionable, behaviors to increase the likelihood of a sustainable retirement for the client. I think teaching about personal finance works!
It sure seems to me that financial education works, and every other study I've seen shows an association between financial literacy and financial outcomes. And there are many new studies showing causal outcomes to financial literacy education.
As for you, Lisa, I've witnessed you teach and you are a star!
Thanks for linking me to this. I am intrigued! This is your study, right? If I'm reading it right, you use machine learning to parse survey data and construct a measure of perceived self-reported financial well-being. Then use regression (did you build the model specifications using machine learning?) to find the effect of various variables on perceived financial well-being.
Here's the part I keep tripping over: you find a "negative relationship between financial literacy and economic outcomes." Would it be fair to say that you find that having better financial literacy makes your financial well-being worse? I mean, I you don't simply argue that financial education isn't money well-spent. That's an intuitive argument regardless of whether it's supported by data or not. But I'm having a tough time getting on board with the idea that there's really a causal "negative relationship between financial literacy and economic outcomes." Help me.
Hi Stephen, The negative relationship exists conditional on the other variables in the model. While initially a surprising result, Netemeyer found a similar result. There are a bunch of examples that can explain why financial literacy may not matter. For instance, higher-income individuals offload their financial affairs to advisors, and while they may be innately highly educated or entrepreneurial, they don’t care a lick about finance. We looked at heterogeneity on the income variable. Found no significant effect of financial literacy on the perception of economic outcomes of lower income, but a negative effect among higher income.
Could your results show an "ignorance is bliss" effect? People with more financial literacy are more aware when they're finances aren't what they think they should be?
Your results are surprising to me, because in all other studies I've seen better fin literacy is associated with better outcomes, and the best causal studies show an effect of fin literacy on positive fin behaviors.
There aren’t many causal studies where the effect is an economic measure. Behaviors, for sure, but not an economic outcome. The problem with behaviors is the researcher denotes what is a good or bad behavior, determined at the moment the survey respondent is answering the question, that imposes the researchers bias.
hahaha love this story! We need to account for personality as well, what we think is worth spending our money on may not match our kids' ideas.
On the opposite spectrum, I was concerned about having made my oldest too cautious about spending money when she started to cry after regreting the purchase of a 2 pounds pen on a trip. I guess we've all been there!
I have one of those, too. I tell him that he can't take it with him!
I also say that we save money in order to spend it eventually. But I think she regretted spending money on that pen, and was in doubt if it was worth it or if she should have waited to find something she liked more. At least she is thinking about trade offs.
Oh, parenting. This was hilarious. After watching my grandkids and their differing attitudes to spending even being raised in the same household, I wonder if there is a way to select for personality types as well. That would certainly be complicated and I can't imagine how to do it.
I'm generally all for evidence based research, but after reading the abstract shared by the researcher below, it made me realize how many assumptions we make based on the lens we view financial decisions as to whether or not it is a "good" decision. I have met with hundreds of clients of financial advisors (I'm not an advisor, I am a CFP) and anecdotally, improving financial literacy works. I am often complimented by these clients on my ability to take complex (to them) concepts, full of jargon, and break it down to understandable and more importantly, actionable, behaviors to increase the likelihood of a sustainable retirement for the client. I think teaching about personal finance works!
It sure seems to me that financial education works, and every other study I've seen shows an association between financial literacy and financial outcomes. And there are many new studies showing causal outcomes to financial literacy education.
As for you, Lisa, I've witnessed you teach and you are a star!
There are serious doubts about the value of literacy….is it worth the public spend?
But your article below questions financial literacy is good regardless of cost, right?
Full article: Financial Literacy and Perceived Economic Outcomeshttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2330443X.2022.2086191
Thanks for linking me to this. I am intrigued! This is your study, right? If I'm reading it right, you use machine learning to parse survey data and construct a measure of perceived self-reported financial well-being. Then use regression (did you build the model specifications using machine learning?) to find the effect of various variables on perceived financial well-being.
Here's the part I keep tripping over: you find a "negative relationship between financial literacy and economic outcomes." Would it be fair to say that you find that having better financial literacy makes your financial well-being worse? I mean, I you don't simply argue that financial education isn't money well-spent. That's an intuitive argument regardless of whether it's supported by data or not. But I'm having a tough time getting on board with the idea that there's really a causal "negative relationship between financial literacy and economic outcomes." Help me.
Hi Stephen, The negative relationship exists conditional on the other variables in the model. While initially a surprising result, Netemeyer found a similar result. There are a bunch of examples that can explain why financial literacy may not matter. For instance, higher-income individuals offload their financial affairs to advisors, and while they may be innately highly educated or entrepreneurial, they don’t care a lick about finance. We looked at heterogeneity on the income variable. Found no significant effect of financial literacy on the perception of economic outcomes of lower income, but a negative effect among higher income.
Could your results show an "ignorance is bliss" effect? People with more financial literacy are more aware when they're finances aren't what they think they should be?
Your results are surprising to me, because in all other studies I've seen better fin literacy is associated with better outcomes, and the best causal studies show an effect of fin literacy on positive fin behaviors.
There aren’t many causal studies where the effect is an economic measure. Behaviors, for sure, but not an economic outcome. The problem with behaviors is the researcher denotes what is a good or bad behavior, determined at the moment the survey respondent is answering the question, that imposes the researchers bias.
Well, the behavioral studies don't usually use surveys, which I think is often a strength. They observe outcomes.
Anyway, all research methods come with trade-offs. I'm glad we have all different types of studies on this. It gives us a richer view of the topic.