Multipliers of Financial Literacy in Germany and Russia?

Abstract

In Germany and Russia, the majority of the population shows significant deficits in financial literacy. To overcome this situation both countries need people who are able to share and teach their knowledge. Economic students could be such multipliers. Therefore, it is important to understand the qualification of these students as ambassadors of financial literacy.

We examine the financial competence of German and Russian economic students. Based on a survey with international-comparable questions we find that most students perform indeed better than the international average. But only few students are able to answer all questions correctly with gender and age specific divergences. Women perform better at numeracy but worse at financial questions and younger students perform worse than older. Finally, we show that students with better understanding and education in finance are more likely to assign a probability to future crisis and that Russian students are more pessimistic than German students.