Financial Literacy Externalities

The seminar will present evidence based on the use of unique administrative data and a quasi-field experiment of exogenous allocation to apartments in Sweden to estimate medium- and longer-run effects on financial behaviour from exposure to financially literate neighbours.

Event Abstract

The paper contributes evidence of causal impact of financial literacy and points to a social multiplier of effective programs to enhance it. Exposure promotes saving in private retirement accounts and stock-holding, especially when neighbours have economics or business education, but only for educated or male-headed households. Findings point to relevant knowledge transfer through social interactions rather than to labour market or other channels linked to local economic conditions.

Booking

This is an open event; there is no need to book. Please feel free to attend and bring your colleagues, classmates and friends.

Speaker bio

Professor Michael Haliassos holds the Chair of Macroeconomics and Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR, UK), Founding Director of the CEPR Network on Household Finance (2015- ), and International Research Fellow of NETSPAR (The Netherlands). He is also adviser to the European Central Bank on the Eurozone Survey of Household Finances and Consumption since its inception in 2006 and member of the Research Board of the Think Forward Initiative.

Professor Haliassos' research interests lie in Macroeconomics and Finance with emphasis on household finance, where he has been among the early contributors. He has studied household portfolio choice under labour income risk, stock-holding behaviour, consumer debt.