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.

This second edition of the authoritative resource summarizes the state of consumer finance research across disciplines for expert findings on—and strategies for enhancing—consumers’ economic health. New and revised chapters offer current research insights into familiar concepts (retirement saving, bankruptcy, marriage and finance) as well as the latest findings in emerging areas, including healthcare costs, online shopping, financial therapy, and the neuroscience behind buyer behavior. The expanded coverage also reviews economic challenges of diverse populations such as ethnic groups, youth, older adults, and entrepreneurs, reflecting the ubiquity of monetary issues and concerns. Underlying all chapters is the increasing importance of financial literacy training and other large-scale interventions in an era of economic transition. Among the topics covered: Consumer financial capability and well-being. Advancing financial literacy education using a framework for evaluation. Financial coaching: defining an emerging field. Consumer finance of low-income families. Financial parenting: promoting financial self-reliance of young consumers. Financial sustainability and personal finance education. Accessibly written for researchers and practitioners, this Second Edition of the Handbook of Consumer Finance Research will interest professionals involved in improving consumers’ fiscal competence. It also makes a worthwhile text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in economics, family and consumer studies, and related fields.

Government policies, marketing campaigns of banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, and consumers' protective actions all depend on assumptions about consumer financial behavior. Unfortunately, many consumers have no or little knowledge of budgeting, financial products, and financial planning. It is therefore important that organizations and market authorities know why consumers spend, borrow, insure, invest, and save for their retirement - or why they do not. Understanding Consumer Financial Behavior provides a systemic economic and behavioral approach to the way people handle their finances. It discusses the different types of financial behaviors consumers may engage in and explores the psychological explanations for their behavior and choices. This exciting new book is essential reading for scholars of marketing, finance, and management; financial professionals; and consumer policy makers.

Consumer financial behavior is a domain between micro-economics, behavioral finance, and marketing. It is based on insights and behavioral theories from cognitive, economic, and social psychology (biases, heuristics, social influences), in the context of and sometimes in conflict with micro-economic theories of consumers, investors, and markets. Behavioral finance has a descriptive approach, how people make financial decisions. Not always rational, but often in a systematic irrational way. Consumer financial behavior is also a basis and starting point for the marketing management of financial products and services, as well as for consumer education and protection policy. This monograph is on the determinants/drivers and consequences of spending, saving, borrowing, insuring, and investing. Ultimately, this monograph is on the financial requirements for financial inclusion, and participation in present society with its myriad of products and services, experiences, social media, information (overload), and the pursuit of meaning, satisfaction, happiness, and wellbeing.

This handbook surveys the social aspects of consumer behavior, offering latest data and original research on current consumer needs as well as identifying emerging areas of research. This accessible volume (which can be read without advanced training in the field) starts with current concepts of risk tolerance, consumer socialization, and financial well-being, and moves on to salient data on specific settings and populations such as high school students and the older consumer.

This book presents selected papers on the factors that serve to influence an individual’s capacity in financial decision-making. Initial chapters provide an overview of the cognitive factors affecting financial decisions and suggest a link between limited cognitive capacity and the need for financial education. The book then expands on these cognitive limitations to explore the tendency for overconfidence in decision-making and the interplay between rational and irrational factors. Later contributions show how credit card companies benefit from limitations in consumer financial literacy, how gender and cognition intersect to play an important role in financial decision-making, and how to improve financial capacity through financial literacy and education campaigns, including those addressing developed marketplaces. This comprehensive collection of papers will be of value to all readers who seek to better understand the multi-factorial and complex nature of personal financial management in today’s economic climate.

With contributions from an international range of active researchers, this Research Agenda provides a timely literature review on core topics related to consumer financial behavior. Chapters cover financial management behavior, desirable financial behavior and any financial behavior that helps improve financial wellbeing.

This book explores the issue of consumer financial education, responding to increased interest in, and calls to improve peoples’ financial literacy skills and abilities to understand and manage their money. New conceptual frameworks introduced in the book offer academic audiences an innovative way of thinking about the project on financial literacy education. Using the concepts of ‘edu-regulation’ and ‘financial knowledge democratisation’ to analyse the financial education project in the UK, the book exposes serious, and often ignored, limitations to using information and education as tools for consumer protection. It challenges the mainstream representation of financial literacy education as a viable solution to consumer financial exclusion and poverty. Instead, it argues that the project on financial literacy education fails to acknowledge important dependences between consumer financial behaviour and the socio-economic, political, and cultural context within which consumers live. Finally, it reveals how these international and national calls for ever greater financial education oversimplify and underestimate the complexity of consumer financial decision-making in our modern times.

Consumer finance refers to the saving, borrowing, and investment choices that households make over time. These financial decisions can be complex and can affect households' financial wellbeing both now and in the future. Safe and affordable financial services are an important tool for most American households to avoid financial hardship, build assets, and achieve financial security over the course of their lives. Understanding why and how consumers make financial decisions is important when considering policy issues in consumer financial markets. Households borrow money for the following common reasons: investments-such as a home or education-to build future wealth, consumption smoothing (i.e., paying later to consume things now), and emergency expenses. Most households rely on credit to finance some of these expenses, because they do not have enough money saved to pay for them. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, mortgage debt is by far the largest type of debt for households, accounting for approximately 67% of household debt. Student debt is the second-largest household debt, followed by auto loans and credit cards. Consumer financial markets generally share similar market dynamics. In all of these markets, consumers often act in similar ways when making financial decisions and firms tend to act in comparable ways to attract consumers. Therefore, the government tends to consider similar policy interventions when regulating in these markets. Competitive free markets generally lead to efficient distributions of goods and services to maximize value for society. Yet sometimes, free markets are inefficient when particular issues arise. Common issues in consumer financial markets include (1) information asymmetries between financial firms and consumers and (2) behavioral biases that predictably bias consumers when making financial decisions. In these cases, government policy can potentially correct market failures to bring the market to a more efficient outcome, maximizing social welfare. In consumer finance, three types of policy interventions are common: (1) standardized consumer disclosures; (2) regulation to prevent deceptive, unfair, or abusive financial institution practices; and (3) regulation to prevent discrimination in consumer-lending markets. Yet, policymakers need to be aware of unintended consequences of proposed policies, and often find it challenging to determine whether a policy intervention will help or harm a particular market's efficiency. In response to the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (DoddFrank; P.L. 111-203) established the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) to implement and enforce federal consumer financial law while ensuring consumers can access financial products and services. The CFPB's authorities fall into three broad categories: rulemaking, writing regulations to implement laws under its jurisdiction; supervision, the power to examine and impose reporting requirements on financial institutions; and enforcement of various consumer protection laws and regulations. The CFPB generally has regulatory authority over providers of an array of consumer financial products and services. The major consumer financial markets include mortgage lending, student loans, automobile loans, credit cards and payments, payday loans and other credit alternative financial products, and checking accounts and substitutes. In addition, two important market structures allow these consumer financial products to be offered: (1) the consumer credit reporting system and (2) the debt collection market. These aspects of the consumer credit system facilitate the pricing of credit offers and the resolution of delinquent consumer credit products for most consumer credit markets.

This book explores how new and small ventures with comparatively fewer financial resources have been able to compete with big banks and financial institutions. It discusses entry, competition, and growth strategies based on new business models enacted by current FinTech ventures. An analysis of strategies for Fintech and of cases from banked as well as non-banked and underbanked customer segments produces a framework based on effectuation, resulting in a final discussion of the broad societal outcomes of FinTech related to financial inclusion, the digital divide, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This book, linking theory with practical application, offers scholars a comprehensive strategic view on FinTech from effectual, causal, and entrepreneurial innovation standpoints.