infonet-economy

The authors present a definition of financial literacy that includes individual and systemic facets as a basis for their comprehensive framework of financial literacy. The individual facets cover financial decisions in daily life, and counselling and sales situations focused on the consumer. Based on a systemic orientation, the approach also covers contextual issues of the economy and society, as well as economic and political framework conditions (second facet). Furthermore, both facets address cognitive (knowledge, skills and abilities) as well as non-cognitive (emotional, motivational and volitional) aspects of financial literacy. With this holistic approach, a series of interviews were conducted with experts to answer two research questions:
(1) How do experts and stakeholders elaborate different facets of financial literacy within a holistic framework? (2) How important do experts consider each facet to be? Results show that a broad view of financial literacy is seldom present, as the interviewees generally focused on individual cognitive components, neglecting systemic and non-cognitive facets. Consequences are discussed in the paper.