FINANCIAL LITERACY AND SAVING RATES IN BRAZIL

This paper investigates whether financial education influences the savings rate chosen by individuals. We used a primary database with 345 individuals who answered online questions about their personal characteristics (sex, color, age, income and education) and also questions measuring their level of financial knowledge. Using ordinary least squares, we aimed to verify whether individuals with higher financial education save more, once controlling for other individual characteristics. The results of the linear regressions show that while the level of education (measured in years of schooling) does not influence the rate of savings, the level of financial education influences directly the decision of how much to save individuals.