Financial literacy and financial education are not new topics, even though interest in these topics among policymakers, financial authorities, and academics continues to grow. The Routledge Handbook of Financial Literacy provides a comprehensive reference work that addresses both research perspectives and practical applications to financial education. This is the first volume to summarize the milestones of research in financial literacy from multiple perspectives to offer an overview. The book is organized into six parts. The first three parts provide a conceptual framework, which discusses what financial literacy is, how it should be measured, and explains why it represents a relevant topic and effective tool in enhancing decision-making among consumers as well as consumer protection strategies. Part IV addresses the connection between financial education and financial literacy, with chapters about financial education in school settings as well as for adults. This part includes an analysis of the role of Fintech and the use of gamification in financial education. Part V is a collection of contributions that analyze financial literacy and financial education around the world, with a focus on geographical areas including the U.S., South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. This part also considers how financial literacy should be addressed in the case of Islamic finance. The concluding part of the book examines how financial literacy is related to other possible approaches to consumer finance and consumer protection, addressing the relationships between financial literacy and behavioral economics, financial well-being, and financial inclusion. This volume is an indispensable reference for scholars who are new to the topic, including undergraduate and graduate students, and for experienced researchers who wish to enrich their knowledge, policymakers seeking a broader understanding and an international perspective, and practitioners who seek knowledge of best practices as well as innovative approaches.

Financial literacy and financial education are not new topics, even though interest in these topics among policymakers, financial authorities, and academics continues to grow. The Routledge Handbook of Financial Literacy provides a comprehensive reference work that addresses both research perspectives and practical applications to financial education. This is the first volume to summarize the milestones of research in financial literacy from multiple perspectives to offer an overview. The book is organized into six parts. The first three parts provide a conceptual framework, which discusses what financial literacy is, how it should be measured, and explains why it represents a relevant topic and effective tool in enhancing decision-making among consumers as well as consumer protection strategies. Part IV addresses the connection between financial education and financial literacy, with chapters about financial education in school settings as well as for adults. This part includes an analysis of the role of Fintech and the use of gamification in financial education. Part V is a collection of contributions that analyze financial literacy and financial education around the world, with a focus on geographical areas including the U.S., South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. This part also considers how financial literacy should be addressed in the case of Islamic finance. The concluding part of the book examines how financial literacy is related to other possible approaches to consumer finance and consumer protection, addressing the relationships between financial literacy and behavioral economics, financial well-being, and financial inclusion. This volume is an indispensable reference for scholars who are new to the topic, including undergraduate and graduate students, and for experienced researchers who wish to enrich their knowledge, policymakers seeking a broader understanding and an international perspective, and practitioners who seek knowledge of best practices as well as innovative approaches.

The Routledge Handbook on Financial Social Work explicates the financial needs, issues, and interventions within populations and theoretical approaches, and it assists clinician practitioners in intervening expertly and comprehensively. This book covers a range of issues in populations seeking services around complex financial needs and struggles, including those in the child welfare system; those with housing issues or facing homelessness; those coping with chronic and acute medical and psychiatric illnesses; those recovering from interpersonal violence; those facing recovery from incarceration; children and families involved in the child welfare system; and much more. In addition, policies will be woven in to inform the work. This book thoroughly explores research and evidence-based interventions around each population, and teaches clinicians to understand and treat financial distress holistically and empathically. This handbook will explain why understanding financial capability in these populations is so critical and how clinicians can step up their practices to meet those needs. Professionals from multiple disciplines ranging from financial therapists to social workers to financial coaches to financial planners will find this handbook eminently useful.

Financialization has become the go-to term for scholars grappling with the growth of finance. This Handbook offers the first comprehensive survey of the scholarship on financialization, connecting finance with changes in politics, technology, culture, society and the economy. It takes stock of the diverse avenues of research that comprise financialization studies and the contributions they have made to understanding the changes in contemporary societies driven by the rise of finance. The chapters chart the field’s evolution from research describing and critiquing the manifestations of financialization towards scholarship that pinpoints the driving forces, mechanisms and boundaries of financialization. Written for researchers and students not only in economics but from across the social sciences and the humanities, this book offers a decidedly global and pluri-disciplinary view on financialization for those who are looking to understand the changing face of finance and its consequences.

This Handbook presents in-depth research conducted on a myriad of issues within the field of financial literacy. Split into six sections, it starts by presenting prevalent conceptions of financial literacy before covering financial literacy in the policy context, the state and development of financial literacy within different countries, issues of assessment and evaluation of financial literacy, approaches to teaching financial literacy, and teacher training and teacher education in financial literacy. In doing so, it provides precise definitions of the construct of financial literacy and elaborates on the state and recent developments of financial literacy around the world, to show ways of measuring and fostering financial literacy and to give hints towards necessary and successful teacher trainings. The book also embraces the diversity in the field by revealing contrasting and conflicting views that cannot be bridged, while at the same time making a contribution by re-joining existing materials in one volume which can be used in academic discourse, in research-workshops, in university lectures and in the definition of program initiatives within the wider field of financial literacy. It allows for a landscape of financial literacy to be depicted which would foster the implementation of learning opportunities for human beings for sake of well-being within financial living-conditions. The Handbook is useful to academics and students of the topic, professionals in the sector of investment and banking, and for every person responsible for managing his or her financial affairs in everyday life.

A growing body of evidence suggests that financial literacy plays an important role in financial well-being, and that differences in financial knowledge acquired early in life can explain a significant part of financial and more general well-being in adult life. Financial technology (FinTech) is revolutionizing the financial services industry at an unrivalled pace. Views differ regarding the impact that FinTech is likely to have on personal financial planning, well-being and societal welfare. In an era of mounting student debt, increased (digital) financial inclusion and threats arising from instances of (online) financial fraud, financial education and enlightened financial advising are appropriate policy interventions that enhance financial and overall well-being. Financial Literacy and Responsible Finance in the FinTech Era: Capabilities and Challenges engages in this important academic and policy agenda by presenting a set of seven chapters emanating from four parallel streams of literature related to financial literacy and responsible finance. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of The European Journal of Finance.

Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), this groundbreaking new handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, thereby helping to define this evolving field of research and practice. It provides a readily available resource for anyone seriously involved in education finance and policy in the United States and around the world. The Handbook traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and the revenue sources used to finance these inputs to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. It shows how the current decision-making context in school finance inevitably interacts with those of governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of the important contemporary issues requires input from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a variety of disciplines. While many of the chapters cover complex state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand.

The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics presents a comprehensive overview of the latest work on economic theory and policy from a ‘pluralistic’ heterodox perspective. Contributions throughout the Handbook explore different theoretical perspectives including: Marxian-radical political economics; Post Keynesian-Sraffian economics; institutionalist-evolutionary economics; feminist economics; social economics; Régulation theory; the Social Structure of Accumulation approach; and ecological economics. They explain the structural properties and dynamics of capitalism, as well as propose economic and social policies for the benefit of the majority of the population. This book aims, firstly, to provide realistic and coherent theoretical frameworks to understand the capitalist economy in a constructive and forward-looking manner. Secondly, it delineates the future directions, as well as the current state, of heterodox economics, and then provides both ‘heat and light’ on controversial issues, drawing out the commonalities and differences among different heterodox economic approaches. The volume also envisions transformative economic and social policies for the majority of the population and explains why economics is, and should be treated as, a social science. This Handbook will be of compelling interest to those, including students, who wish to learn about alternative economic theories and policies that are rarely found in conventional economics textbooks or discussed in the mainstream media, and to critical economists and other social scientists who are concerned with analyzing pressing socio-economic issues.

There is increasing pressure for all of us to take responsibility for our own financial security and wellbeing, but we often overlook how the benefits that come with a job can help us do that. Essential Personal Finance: A Practical Guide for Employees focuses on these valuable work benefits and shows how you can build on this important foundation to achieve financial security and your life goals. This unique book explores how making effective and practical use of these work benefits (such as pension scheme, life cover, sick pay, cheap loans, savings schemes and even financial coaching), means facing up to the behavioural biases we are all plagued with. Given that these can get in the way of even the best intentions, Essential Personal Finance tackles these biases head-on with practical ideas and tips for overcoming or harnessing them for good, and will help you to develop a positive and fruitful relationship with your money. With financial stress being a major cause of absenteeism and sick leave, low morale and lost productivity, the advice in this book also offers employers enormous benefits. By empowering employees through financial education and financial awareness, progressive employers will help them feel more in control of their lives, and experience less stress, resulting in higher morale and productivity. Offering a distinctive approach which combines academic insight with practical financial wisdom and tools, this is a must-have book for all employees. It will help you make the most of everything your job has to offer so you can worry less about money and live life to the full.

The Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies is a timely volume that provides an overview of this interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1990s in the context of deindustrialization, the rise of the service economy, and economic and cultural globalization. The Handbook brings together scholars, teachers, activists, and organizers from across three continents to focus on the study of working-class peoples, cultures, and politics in all their complexity and diversity. The Handbook maps the current state of the field and presents a visionary agenda for future research by mingling the voices and perspectives of founding and emerging scholars. In addition to a framing Introduction and Conclusion written by the co-editors, the volume is divided into six sections: Methods and principles of research in working-class studies; Class and education; Work and community; Working-class cultures; Representations; and Activism and collective action. Each of the six sections opens with an overview that synthesizes research in the area and briefly summarizes each of the chapters in the section. Throughout the volume, contributors from various disciplines explore the ways in which experiences and understandings of class have shifted rapidly as a result of economic and cultural globalization, social and political changes, and global financial crises of the past two decades. Written in a clear and accessible style, the Handbook is a comprehensive interdisciplinary anthology for this young but maturing field, foregrounding transnational and intersectional perspectives on working-class people and issues and focusing on teaching and activism in addition to scholarly research. It is a valuable resource for activists, as well as working-class studies researchers and teachers across the social sciences, arts, and humanities, and it can also be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses.