Motivation and financial literacy

This paper examines the hypothesis that low financial literacy scores among young adults, even after they have taken a course in personal finance, is related to a lack of motivation to learn or retain these skills. The research is based upon the latest national Jumptart survey of high school seniors and uses financial literacy scores after controlling for socioeconomic, demographic, and aspirational characteristics that have historically predicted these scores. We analyze the relation of financial literacy scores to responses to three questions designed to measure motivation to be financially literate. We found that the motivational variables significantly increased our ability to explain differences in financial literacy.