Are you financially literate? Discover in the Financial Literacy Thermometer

Abstract

This study had as its objective to develop an indicator for the financial literacy of individuals, called Financial Literacy Thermometer. To achieve this objective, a survey with 1.572 inhabitants of the state of Rio Grande do Sul was done. Based on the answers to the survey, a confirmatory factor analysis was used to build the financial attitude and financial behavior constructs. Next, the financial knowledge construct was calculated. With these three constructs in hand, two clusters were obtained by means of cluster analysis. The first cluster represents individuals who have low financial literacy and the second one those who have high financial literacy. Based on the squared Euclidean distance in relation to the center of each cluster, the proposed indicator allows us to classify any individual as having low or high level of financial literacy. The results also suggest that the majority of respondents have a low level of financial literacy. Such findings ratify the urgent need to develop effective actions in order to reduce financial illiteracy and thus minimize the problems associated to it. Keywords: thermometer, financial literacy, cluster analysis.