IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crp/wpaper/109.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Tabea Bucher-Koenen

    (MEA, University of Mannheim)

  • Annamaria Lusardi

    (Dartmouth College)

Abstract

We examine financial literacy in Germany using data from the SAVE survey. We find that knowledge of basic financial concepts is lacking among women, the less educated, and those living in East Germany. In particular, those with low education and low income in East Germany have little financial literacy compared to their West German counterparts. Interestingly, there is no gender disparity in financial knowledge in the East. In order to investigate the nexus of causality between financial literacy and retirement planning we develop an IV strategy by making use of regional variation in the financial knowledge of peers. We find a positive impact of financial knowledge on retirement planning.

Suggested Citation

  • Tabea Bucher-Koenen & Annamaria Lusardi, 2011. "Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Germany," CeRP Working Papers 109, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
  • Handle: RePEc:crp:wpaper:109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cerp.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/wp_109.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Axel Börsch-Supan & Lothar Essig, 2003. "Stockholding in Germany," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Luigi Guiso & Michael Haliassos & Tullio Jappelli (ed.), Stockholding in Europe, chapter 5, pages 110-138, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. van Rooij, Maarten & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob, 2011. "Financial literacy and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 449-472, August.
    3. Bucher-Koenen, Tabea & Ziegelmeyer, Michael, 2011. "Who lost the most? Financial Literacy, Cognitive Abilities, and the Financial Crisis," MEA discussion paper series 11234, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    4. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 2003. "Stockholding in Italy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Luigi Guiso & Michael Haliassos & Tullio Jappelli (ed.), Stockholding in Europe, chapter 6, pages 141-167, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Nicola Fuchs-Schuendeln & Dirk Krueger & Mathias Sommer, 2010. "Inequality Trends for Germany in the Last Two Decades: A Tale of Two Countries," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 103-132, January.
    6. Axel Boersch-Supan & Christina B. Wilke, 2004. "The German Public Pension System: How it Was, How it Will Be," NBER Working Papers 10525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Luigi Guiso & Michael Haliassos & Tullio Jappelli (ed.), 2003. "Stockholding in Europe," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-50267-3, December.
    8. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Reil-Held, Anette & Schunk, Daniel, 2008. "Saving incentives, old-age provision and displacement effects: evidence from the recent German pension reform," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 295-319, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bucher-Koenen, Tabea & Ziegelmeyer, Michael, 2011. "Who lost the most? Financial Literacy, Cognitive Abilities, and the Financial Crisis," MEA discussion paper series 11234, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    2. Bucher-Koenen, Tabea, 2011. "Financial Literacy, Riester Pensions, and Other Private Old Age Provision in Germany," MEA discussion paper series 11250, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    3. repec:mea:meawpa:12261 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Lamla, Bettina, 2012. "Family background, informal networks and the decision to provide for old age: A siblings approach," MEA discussion paper series 201210, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    5. Schulte, Katharina & Zirpel, Ulrike, 2010. "Betting on a long life: The role of subjective life expectancy in the demand for private pension insurance of german households," Economics Working Papers 2010-06, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    6. repec:mea:meawpa:14282 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Attilio Gardini & Alessandro Magi, 2007. "Stock Market Participation: New Empirical Evidence from Italian Households'Behavior," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 66(1), pages 93-114, March.
    8. Lee, Boram & Rosenthal, Leonard & Veld, Chris & Veld-Merkoulova, Yulia, 2015. "Stock market expectations and risk aversion of individual investors," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 122-131.
    9. Michael Ziegelmeyer & Julius Nick, 2013. "Backing out of private pension provision: lessons from Germany," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 505-539, August.
    10. Sandra E Black & Paul J Devereux & Petter Lundborg & Kaveh Majlesi, 2018. "Learning to Take Risks? The Effect of Education on Risk-Taking in Financial Markets," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(3), pages 951-975.
    11. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 2005. "Awareness and Stock Market Participation," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(4), pages 537-567.
    12. Bucher-Koenen, Tabea & Lamla, Bettina, 2014. "The long Shadow of Socialism: On East-West German Differences in Financial Literacy," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100585, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/8576 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Dick, Christian D. & Jaroszek, Lena M., 2013. "Knowing what not to do: Financial literacy and consumer credit choices," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-027, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Francesco Caloia & Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Giacomo Pasini, 2019. "Being in good hands: Deposit insurance and peers financial sophistication," DNB Working Papers 638, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    16. David Aristei & Silvia Bacci & Francesco Bartolucci & Silvia Pandolfi, 2021. "A bivariate finite mixture growth model with selection," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 15(3), pages 759-793, September.
    17. Luc Arrondel, 2020. "Financial literacy and French behaviour on the stock market," Working Papers halshs-02505320, HAL.
    18. repec:vul:omefvu:v:9:y:2017:i:2:id:234 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Alexis Direr & Eric Yayi, 2014. "Les choix de portefeuille des épargnants sur le cycle boursier et le cycle de vie," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 472(1), pages 125-152.
    20. Arrondel, L. & Savignac, F., 2009. "Stockholding: Does housing wealth matter?," Working papers 266, Banque de France.
    21. Luc Arrondel, 2018. "Financial Literacy and Asset Behaviour: Poor Education and Zero for Conduct?," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 60(1), pages 144-160, March.
    22. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Haliassos, Michael, 2011. "Stockholding: Participation, location, and spillovers," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1918-1930, August.
    23. Eva Sierminska & Karina Doorley, 2018. "To own or not to own? Household portfolios, demographics and institutions in a cross-national perspective," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 25(1), pages 1-43, March.
    24. Zou, Jing & Deng, Xiaojun, 2019. "Financial literacy, housing value and household financial market participation: Evidence from urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 52-66.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial sophistication; retirement planning; life-cycle savings; financial education; East Germany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:crp:wpaper:109. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Silvia Maero (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cetorit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.