nep-fle New Economics Papers
on Financial Literacy and Education
Issue of 2026–09–21
four papers chosen by
Viviana Di Giovinazzo, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca


  1. Improving Financial Literacy: From Corporate Finance to Personal Finance By Annamaria Lusardi
  2. Households' macroeconomic beliefs: The role of education By Piccolo, Jessica; Russo, Alessia; Granziera, Eleonora; Castelnuovo, Efrem
  3. Interrelations between behavioral biases, financial literacy, and investment decision-making: A bivariate correlational study among Moroccan individual investors By Raja El Asri; Abdelaziz Messaoudi
  4. Interpretable hybrid credit scoring for thin-file and underbanked populations By Belise Kanziga; Ya\'e U. Gaba; Olivier Kanamugire

  1. By: Annamaria Lusardi
    Abstract: This article provides an overview of the literature on financial literacy. It covers the initial measurement that created the Big Three questions and measures of personal finance knowledge featuring 28 questions. It shows that levels of financial literacy are low and have not been improving over time. This is true not only in the United States but also in countries worldwide. These findings matter because financial literacy is conducive to savvy financial behaviors, from holding precautionary savings to planning for retirement to many other financial decisions. Financial education programs have grown exponentially over time, providing important insights into their cost-effectiveness. Personal finance courses have been added to high school and college curricula, and the evidence indicates that they are useful initiatives to improve financial knowledge and downstream behavior.
    JEL: G53
    Date: 2026–07
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35564
  2. By: Piccolo, Jessica; Russo, Alessia; Granziera, Eleonora; Castelnuovo, Efrem
    Abstract: We design a novel survey to study how education shapes households' joint beliefs about inflation, unemployment, and monetary policy transmission. College-educated respondents perceive the inflation-unemployment trade-off and hold views similar to professional forecasters, while less educated respondents favor supply-side narratives. When exposed to hypothetical monetary policy interventions, the more educated update expectations and adjust consumption and saving in line with standard models, whereas the less educated display greater rigidity. This education gradient persists after controlling for information sources, financial literacy, and institutional trust, pointing to differences in abstract reasoning. Open-ended responses are consistent with college-educated households holding mental models aligned with standard macroeconomic theory.
    Keywords: Household expectations, education, mental models, monetary policy transmission, belief heterogeneity, survey data
    JEL: D83 D84 E31 E52 I21
    Date: 2026
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bofrdp:343547
  3. By: Raja El Asri (FSJES Agadir, Université Ibn Zohr = Ibn Zohr University [Agadir]); Abdelaziz Messaoudi (FSJES Agadir, Université Ibn Zohr = Ibn Zohr University [Agadir])
    Abstract: In the dynamic and frequently under-researched domain of emerging financial markets, this research rigorously analyzes the influence of behavioral biases and financial literacy on the multifaceted aspects of investment decision-making among individual investors in Morocco. The central aim is to investigate bivariate correlations between eleven behavioral biases categorized across cognitive, emotional, and mental/social dimensions and the three dimensions of investment decision-making: intuition, perceived rationality, and overall satisfaction.The research adopts a distinctly exploratory design that is firmly situated within a quantitative, hypothetico-deductive paradigm. The sample comprises 411 individual investors who are actively involved in the Casablanca Stock Exchange, selected through a self-administered online questionnaire that was distributed between January and March 2025. The analysis of data was performed utilizing SPSS (version 30), employing non-parametric statistical methodologies, particularly Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, as a result of the non-normality of the variable distributions, which was substantiated by the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test.The findings underscore that specific behavioral constructs such as optimism, mental accounting, and financial literacy exert a constructive impact on all three facets of decision-making, characterized by consistently robust and affirmative correlations. Conversely, various biases including anchoring, representativeness, availability heuristic, and gambler's fallacy exhibit significant adverse associations, particularly influencing perceived rationality and overall satisfaction. Regret aversion emerges as a complex bias, revealing a dualistic nature with a notably positive correlation with satisfaction.Inspite of the methodological limitations related to the application of convenience sampling and a cross-sectional methodology, the research yields considerable theoretical contributions by clarifying the intricate relationships between behavioral biases and cognitive processes relevant to investment. Furthermore, it articulates concrete practical ramifications, particularly the imperative to augment investor cognizance regarding financial literacy and the psychological mechanisms that may compromise the integrity of decision-making quality.The uniqueness of this investigation is attributed to the concurrent and multifaceted evaluation of behavioral biases, the implementation of an exploratory framework reliant on primary data sources, and its empirical foundation in a relatively understudied emerging market. These characteristics confer both scholarly and contextual relevance to the research, thereby facilitating subsequent inquiries into the behavioral dynamics associated with financial decision-making within Morocco and analogous economies.
    Abstract: Dans le paysage évolutif et peu méconnu des marchés financiers émergents, cette enquête vise à évaluer systématiquement les conséquences des biais comportementaux et de la littératie financière sur les différents paramètres de la prise de décision d'investissement des investisseurs individuels au Maroc. L'objectif principal est d'évaluer les associations bivariées entre onze biais distincts classés selon les classifications cognitives, émotionnelles et mentales/sociales etles trois facettes de la prise de décision d'investissement : l'intuition, la rationalité perçue et la satisfaction globale.La méthodologie employée est purement exploratoire et s'aligne sur un cadre quantitatif hypothético-déductif. L'échantillon comprend 411 investisseurs individuels engagés activement à la Bourse de Casablanca, qui ont été recrutés au moyen d'un questionnaire en ligne auto-administré diffusé entre janvier et mars 2025. L'analyse des données, effectuée à l'aide du logiciel SPSS (version 30), est fondée sur des tests statistiques non paramétriques, en particulier le coefficient de corrélation de rang de Spearman, en raison de la non-normalité confirmée des données, comme l'indique le test de Kolmogorov-Smirnov.Les résultats indiquent que certains biais cognitifs exercent un effet bénéfique sur diverses dimensions de la prise de décision, notamment l'optimisme, la comptabilité mentale et la littératie financière, qui présentent toutes des corrélations positives avec l'intuition, la rationalité et les niveaux de satisfaction. À l'inverse, d'autres biais dont l'ancrage, la représentativité, la disponibilité et le sophisme du joueur révèlent des corrélations négatives considérables, influençant particulièrement la rationalité et la satisfaction perçues, tandis que le phénomène de l'aversion au regret présente une double nature, ayant principalement une influence positive sur la satisfaction.Malgré les limites inhérentes de notre étude, qui découlent de l'utilisation de l'échantillonnage par convenance et d'une méthodologie transversale, elle fournit des informations théoriques substantielles en mettant l'accent sur l'influence nuancée des biais comportementaux sur les divers éléments de la prise de décisiond'investissement. De plus, elle présente des implications pratiques distinctes, notamment l'impératif d'améliorer la sensibilisation des investisseurs à l'égard de la littératie financière et de l'atténuation des préjugés psychologiques.Le caractère unique de cette enquête réside dans la nature multidimensionnelle des biais examinés simultanément, l'utilisation d'une méthodologie exploratoire fondée sur des données primaires et son fondement empirique dans un marché qui demeure relativement sous-exploré, donnant ainsi une importance académique et contextuelle considérable à cette recherche.
    Keywords: Moroccan individual investors, financial literacy, investment decision-making, Behavioral biases, corrélations bivariées (Spearman). Classification JEL : D91, G41. Paper type: Empirical research, bivariate correlations (Spearman) JEL Classification: D91, G41 Behavioral biases, G4, G11, bivariate correlations (Spearman) JEL Classification: D91 G11 G4 G41. Paper type: Empirical research, Moroccan individual investors, financial literacy, investment decision-making, corrélations bivariées (Spearman). Classification JEL : D91 G11 G4 G41 Behavioral biases, investisseurs individuels marocains, littératie financière, prise de décision d'investissement, Biais comportementaux
    Date: 2025–06–04
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05691184
  4. By: Belise Kanziga; Ya\'e U. Gaba; Olivier Kanamugire
    Abstract: We extend a residual-learning hybrid credit scoring framework (logistic regression scorecard plus a gradient-boosting correction on its residuals, decomposed at each prediction into an interpretability ratio $\rho(x)$ that measures the share attributable to the linear branch) along three axes: an East African empirical instantiation on the Zindi Financial Inclusion in Africa data (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda); a fairness audit at the granularity of the framework's three interpretability regions; and a thin-file segmentation analysis. On the Taiwan Credit Default benchmark retained for continuity, the calibrated hybrid attains AUC $= 0.776$ ($\Delta\mathrm{AUC} = +0.057$ vs.\ standalone logistic regression, $+0.001$ vs.\ standalone XGBoost), reduces Brier Score by 23\%, and concentrates the highest-default-rate borrowers (69.5\%) in the fully interpretable region. On Zindi, the calibrated hybrid attains AUC $= 0.869$ ($\Delta\mathrm{AUC} = +0.015$ vs.\ LR, $p
    Date: 2026–08
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.26837

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