Gold as a Household Financial Resilience Strategy: Explaining Gold Purchase Intentions in Lebanon’s Fragile Economy

Prolonged financial crises force households to adopt strategies intended to preserve wealth and support financial resilience. Among these strategies, physical gold has become an increasingly attractive safe-haven asset, yet limited evidence exists on the behavioral factors associated with consumers’ intentions to purchase gold in economies experiencing prolonged financial crises. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the cognitive, behavioral, social, and economic predictors of gold purchase intention in Lebanon, one of the countries most severely affected by financial collapse, currency depreciation, and institutional distrust. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Consumer Behavior Theory, the study develops an extended conceptual framework by incorporating financial literacy as an additional antecedent and perceived affordability as both a direct predictor and a moderating variable. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 268 Lebanese adults and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4. The findings reveal that financial literacy, attitude toward gold, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and perceived affordability are all significant positive predictors of purchase intention. Furthermore, the positive associations of attitude and subjective norms with purchase intention are stronger at higher levels of perceived affordability, highlighting its dual role as both an economic determinant and a potential contextual boundary condition. The study extends the TPB by distinguishing between psychosocial predictors of gold purchase intention and the financial capability and resource constraints represented by financial literacy and perceived affordability. By examining perceived affordability as a potential boundary condition for the associations of attitudes and subjective norms with purchase intention, the study clarifies when favorable evaluations and social influences are more strongly associated with intentions to purchase gold as a resilience-oriented financial asset.