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Previous literature has pointed to strong links between religion and economic outcomes. However, little is known about how individual consumers ’ religiosity is related to their financial management outcomes. Using longitudinal data from a national representative survey of households in Poland (more than 90% of believers declaring Roman Catholic religious denomination), we examine the associations between religious service attendance (RSA) and three subsequent consumer financial outcomes: savings, debt, and financial satisfaction. Social contacts, general trust, and risk tolerance have been tested to mediate these associations. The results indicate that RSA is prospectively associated with all three consumer financial outcomes: savings (positive), debt (negative), and financial satisfaction (positive). Only one mediation effect was found: the association between RSA and savings is mediated by social contacts. This implies that religiosity, as measured by RSA, is prospectively associated with financial outcomes, and social contacts have some potential to mediate the process. The channels through which religion influences financial conditions require additional research.

Based on a nationally representative sample of adult Poles (N = 1,004), we examined structural relationships between financial knowledge, skills, confidence, attitudes, and behavior in debt-domain. We found that financial confidence--at least regarding debt-related issues--is tied to debt attitudes and behavior beyond the extent to which the attitudes and behaviors are linked to objective debt knowledge. Moreover, the relationship between objective knowledge and confidence turned out to be insignificant in our study. These findings suggest that confidence should be used as a separate marker of financial capability. Having established that skills correlate with behavior and attitudes differently than objective knowledge, we argue also to include them separately in financial capability measurements.

Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), this study examines the extent to which financial literacy can mitigate financial distress. Employing a "what if" analysis, we simulate the effect of maximizing financial literacy on the likelihood of experiencing financial distress. We show that raising financial literacy to its highest level could prevent financial distress for a group of households facing moderate financial distress. Our results also imply that financial literacy is not a panacea for consumers' financial problems as those facing high risk of financial distress seem to be not affected by financial literacy. Interventions beyond financial literacy might be needed to effectively address financial distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many concerns about financial competences of Millennials. Initial research on this generation suggests that it is less financially knowledgeable and exhibits less healthy financial behaviours compared to other generations. The goal of the article is to compare Millennials to non-Millennials as a whole, as well as to other generations treated in isolation, to check whether Millennials diverge in terms of financial literacy, behaviour and well-being. To that end, this study uses three distinct datasets from three surveys conducted in 2017 and 2018 on different samples of Poles. The applied statistic tests of significant differences do not confirm that Millennials diverge from other generations with respect to financial literacy as well as behaviours related to cash management, saving and investment. However, the surveyed Millennials perform significantly less healthy credit management and insurance behaviours compared to non-Millennials. We also found that Millennials report significantly higher levels of financial well-being compared to all previous generations.

Background and Purpose: In recent years classic financial market theory based on decision makers’ rationality has been challenged by repeated anomalies that became a ‘new normal’. As a result, what we witness today is a considerable turn to behavioral concepts that can shed a new light on choices made by market participants. The astonishing development of social media accelerated scientific validation of such concepts, since the media opened new and capacious ‘laboratory space’ for testing behavioral hypotheses. The main purpose of the article is to examine whether financial market professionals believe that social media content can be useful in achieving additional financial market returns and to investigate the factors behind this belief.

The article presents empirical evidence for a significant role of stated credit purpose for the level of interest rates paid by the end users of non‐mortgage credit (households). Data for the analysis was drawn from two waves of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The results of median regression show that, with the exception of credit for consolidation of other debts, remaining credit purposes were associated with lower interest rates compared to the interest rates of credit for car purchases. Especially low interest rates were evidenced for educational debt. Quantile regression analysis has shown that households which, given their socioeconomic background, experienced the highest interest rate costs, paid additional premiums if their debt was related to consolidation of previous debts or consumption. In the case of households paying relatively low premiums, consolidation of other debts and consumption motives were associated with lower interest rates than loans devoted to car purchase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global digital shift, recently accelerated by the COVID‐19 pandemic, requires that consumers have knowledge allowing them to navigate increasingly cashless markets safely and effectively. To enable valid and reliable measurement of such knowledge, we used data obtained from a random sample of adult Poles to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties and applicability of an original cashless payments knowledge scale (CPK scale). Our analyses based on Item Response Theory show that some evident subdomains exist within the CPK construct. The separate dimensions of the CPK merge into a coherent scale with solid psychometric properties. We find that the CPK score depends on the place of residence, education, and household size, and is positively related to safe cashless behavior. Our findings may have important implications for financial institutions as well as policymakers interested in segmenting consumers in terms of their financial knowledge, potential risks resulting from deficits in this knowledge, and enhancing financial literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain why households decide to simultaneously hold both credit and savings products. Beyond the arguments of ignorance or behavioural biases commonly used in the literature, our analysis demonstrates that co-holders might be rationally seeking lower interest rates on their consumer credit products. Our analysis reveals that additional savings accumulated before credit uptake, even if not used as a down payment for a debt, reduce the interest rate on credit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the link between financial literacy and household mortgage decisions. To this end, the longitudinal data set for the U.S. population from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) was used. Evidence for links between financial literacy levels and (1) mortgage uptake, (2) mortgage interest rates and (3) mortgage refinancing decisions were examined using the two waves (2015 and 2017) of PSID data, combined with the 2016 PSID supplementary questionnaire examining the measured financial literacy of household members. Our results revealed a positive link between financial literacy and mortgage possession and, additionally, between financial literacy and the subsequent decision to take out a mortgage. Moreover, higher financial literacy scores were associated with lower mortgage interests and a greater likelihood of mortgage refinancing. On average, a household that refinanced its mortgage was able to reduce its interest rate by almost 0.7 percentage points, providing evidence of the positive role of financial literacy in securing better mortgage terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional advice can be perceived as a means to tackle shortcomings in the objectively measured financial literacy of consumers. However, most studies suggest that less financially literate individuals are less likely to seek experts' financial advice. At the same time, it has been shown that financial confidence - or subjectively perceived financial literacy - is positively correlated with the propensity to request such professional advice. This study examines these puzzling effects in a sample of 1,055 Facebook users in Poland, and within an analytical framework that allows control of the potential endogeneity of financial literacy to professional advice. A series of regressions applied to the results of our survey showed that objective debt literacy - a little-studied aspect of financial literacy - was insignificant in explaining adviceseeking behaviour, although the decisions to ask for advice were positively dependent on subjective debt literacy. Such outcomes prove that subjective financial literacy should be treated as a separate construct which can predict financial behaviour above and beyond predictions based on objective financial literacy. Our findings also suggest a positive role for social networks in inducing desired financial actions. We found that respondents having access to greater resources embedded in their social networks are more inclined to seek professional debt advice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although financial literacy becomes increasingly important in more and more financialised world, and despite broad-based financial education interventions, consumers still display large shortcomings in the literacy. In this study, using multivariate linear regression and a nationally representative sample of adult Poles (N=1,067), we test some little-studied potential determinants of financial literacy with the purpose to further explain low financial literacy levels. We found that respondents who are more interested in financial domain, have less difficulty in understanding information supplied by means of numbers, and report more learning from own mistakes are at the same time more financially literate, even after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. Possible implications regarding the role of these factors for financial education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]