TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lusardi,Annamaria
AU  - Mitchell,Olivia S.
TI  - How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15350
PY  - 2009
Y2  - September 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15350
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15350.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Annamaria Lusardi
The George Washington University
School of Business
2201 G Street, NW
Duques Hall, Suite 450E
Washington, DC 20052
Tel: 202-994-8410
E-Mail: alusardi@gwu.edu

Olivia S. Mitchell
University of Pennsylvania
Wharton School
3620 Locust Walk, St 3000 SH-DH
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6302
Tel: 215-898-0424
Fax: 215/898-0310
E-Mail: mitchelo@wharton.upenn.edu
AB  - This paper reports on several self-assessed and objective measures of financial literacy newly added to the American Life Panel (ALP), and it links these performance measures to efforts consumers make to plan for retirement. We evaluate the causal relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning by exploiting information about respondents’ financial knowledge acquired in school - before entering the labor market and certainly before starting to plan for retirement. Results show that those with more advanced financial knowledge are those more likely to be retirement-ready.
ER  -