The Value of Financial Literacy and Financial Education for Workers

A financially literate workforce helps the economy, but acquiring the needed skills can be costly. The level of financial literacy in developed countries is low and contributes to growing wealth inequality. Benefits from increasing the level of financial literacy include more effective saving for retirement and better debt management. However, there are significant costs related to acquiring financial literacy in terms of time and money, which implies that the net value of acquiring financial literacy is heterogeneous in the population. This potentially makes designing effective interventions difficult. Please refer to the supporting evidence map for greater details.