Does Financial Literacy Progress Over Time? An Analysis of Three Surveys in Italy

The study investigates the evolution of financial literacy in Italian adults. Using three surveys from the years 2013, 2017, and 2020, we measure the financial literacy index and its components (financial knowledge, financial attitude, and financial behavior) using the OECD definition. The results show that financial literacy has decreased overall since 2013 in all three components. The gender gap persists, although the distance between the financial knowledge of women and men has shrunk. Moreover, results of the CART analysis show that the importance of the socioeconomic explanatory factors also changes over time; repeated baseline surveys of financial literacy of the adult population are therefore crucial for designing effective financial education programs.