Consumer Knowledge and Financial Decisions

It s no secret that financial literacy skills are crucial to consumers lives: between today s complex picture regarding credit and mortgages and the many changes in health insurance and pension programs, failure to follow the money can be devastating. But not all consumers learn the skills and not all experts agree on a definition for financial literacy.§Covering a wide range of perspectives including family/consumer science, law, sociology, and public policy as well as finance and economics, Consumer Knowledge and Financial Decisions offers an accurate picture of American financial literacy and sets out real-world steps toward its improvement. The book starts by tackling methodological challenges to measuring financial competence, and takes a developmental approach to decision-making, such as encouraging responsibility in school children, reducing risky credit behaviors in young adults, and navigating Social Security and Medicare issues in elders. Each chapter focuses on what individuals need to know about a subject, the relationship of that knowledge to financial security, and programs that can improve decision-making or outcomes in that area. Among the topics covered:§Cognitive development and children s financial understanding.Financial education for college students.Homebuyer counseling for diverse buyers.Debtors assessment of bankruptcy education.Stock market investing: lessons from history.Financial preparedness for long-term care needs. §This combination of timely data and practical ideas makes Consumer Knowledge and Financial Decisions a vital resource for a vital resource for professors, students, and policy analysts who study financial decisions.There has been an increasing recognition that financial knowledge (i.e., literacy) is lacking across the population. Moreover, there is recognition that this lack of knowledge poses real problems as credit, mortgages, health insurance, retirement benefits, and savings and investment decisions become increasingly complex. Financial Decisions Across the Lifespan brings together the work of scholars from various disciplines (family and consumer sciences, economics, law, finance, sociology, and public policy) to provide a broad range of perspectives on financial knowledge, financial decisions, and policies. For consistency across the volume each chapter follows a similar format: (1) what individuals know or need to know (2) how what they know or need to know affects financial decisions and outcomes (3) ways in which policies or programs or financial innovations can enhance their knowledge, or decisions, or outcomes. Contributors will provide both new and existing research to create a valuable picture of the state of financial literacy and how it can be improved.