Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments April 26, 2023 erstellt
Description:
Individual characteristics, such as educational background, are important but insufficient to explain variation in financial skills among people. Using repeated cross-sectional survey data on over 145,000 individuals aged 50+ and resident in 20 European countries and Israel combined with historical country-level data, we explore the role that selected country characteristics play in stimulating financial awareness. We find a lasting effect of social mobility on financial skills: individuals who spent early adulthood in countries characterized by high intergenerational mobility proved to be more financially literate than their peers as they age. The effect is economically sizable, especially among women and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. The results hold in models that use country-specific cohort effects to absorb context confounders and common shocks. Our findings suggest that promoting equality of opportunities across generations is not only ethically desirable but can also enhance socially valuable spillovers such as the accumulation of skills among vulnerable citizens