Report on Financial Investments of Italian Households. Behavioural Attitudes and Approaches - 2018 Survey

The 2018 edition of the CONSOB Report on financial investments of Italian households presents evidence on the financial choices of a representative sample of 1,601 Italian households while significantly deepening the analysis of financial knowledge and individual attitudes. After the first Section on trends in household wealth, savings and financial inclusion, the second Section examines several personal inclinations that may deeply affect financial behaviours. In particular, self-evaluation on preference for numerical information, need for cognition, financial anxiety, self-efficacy and self-control are elicited, as well as the attitude towards optimism and generalised trust. These traits are found to be associated with financial knowledge, both actual and perceived, and risk preferences (Section 3) as well as financial control and saving habits (Section 4), investment choices and demand for investment advice (Section 5 and 6, respectively). The last Section of the Report focuses on respondents’ intention to learn finance and monitor household budget in the vein of the Theory of planned behaviour. Overall, the evidence gathered confirms that much remains to be done in order to raise Italian households’ financial knowledge, the quality of their financial choices as well as their awareness of the need to improve their financial competencies.