A Comparative Study Of International Financial Literacy Surveys

Financial literacy is a necessary complement to promote financial deepening and perfect the financial regulation, it’s a necessary skill for consumers to understand financial matters and improve their financial well-being. A large number of investors have suffered from significant losses owing to P2P managers’making off with money. The phenomenon not only exposes the disadvantages of the Internet financial system, such as institutional deficiencies, regulatory inappropriateness, and information disclosure insufficiency, but also reveals that investors lack financial literacy. Financial literacy surveys will be helpful for understanding the status of the the residents’financial literacy. First of all, applying bibliometrics method, this paper clarify the connotation of financial literacy, study measures of financial literacy and the trend of financial literacy measures, and analyze the regional, national, and time distribution of surveys as well as other components, such as the subjects, purposes, objects and ways of surveys. Second, this paper will analyze the overall status of financial literacy in the world and differences in financial literacy between different people with different sociodemographic characteristics by comparing international financial literacy surveys. Finally, a survey conducted by our team will be used to show the process of a survey and financial literacy among residents in China. Results show that the definitions can commonly be divided into two dimensions:knowledge and ability. In terms of financial literacy measures, subjective and objective measurements are very popular in existing studies. Financial literacy has received much attention of many countries in the world, the survey data collected from 86 countries on six continents conducted by various subjects and covering different objects with different characteristics. Financial illiteracy is widespread around the world, there are obvious differences among populations with different sociodemographic characteristics. The survey conducted by our team comes to consistent conclusions with the results from the surveys of other countries and regions. This paper will provide significant guidance for China’s financial literacy survey from definitions to details of implementation, such as choosing survey objects and investigation methods. In addition, the government and relevant institutions need to implement financial education strategies and targeted financial education projects to improve residents’ financial literacy.