투자자교육 여부가 금융역량에 미치는 영향 분석

초록

Increasing attention and concern have been paid to financial capability worldwide since the world financial crisis triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis. Financial capability denotes not only financial knowledge but also financial actions and financial attitudes as well. In short, financial capability encompasses a wide range of factors such as financial actions or attitudes to enable rational financial decision makings. We, for the first time, examine the effects of investor education on financial capability such as financial knowledge, attitudes and actions, employing Investor Survey of Korea Financial Investors Protection Foundation conducted in 2007 and 2016. Specifically, we examine whether financial education improves consistently investors’ financial capability aforementioned. We use knowledge of funds and of general finance as the proxies for financial knowledge, expected returns and loss tolerance as those for financial attitudes, and the ratio of risky financial assets to total financial assets and economic retirement preparation as those for financial actions, respectively, which are based on existing literature such as OECD. T-tests and regression analyses are used. Our findings are as follows. First, the 2007 Survey shows that there is a significant difference in the means, or average values, of both fund knowledge and loss tolerance, whereas there is no such difference in expected returns. Also, the ratio of risky assets and economic preparation for retirement is higher or better for those who have been educated on finance than others. Second, the 2016 Survey shows that these educated financial consumers have a higher mean of fund knowledge than others but not so in financial knowledge. The former do have a higher mean in loss tolerance but not in expected returns. Although they do not have a higher mean of the ratio of risky assets, they do prepare better for their post-retirement lives. All these combined results imply that financial education do not consistently affect financial knowledge, financial attitudes or financial actions. In additon, this inconsistency strengthens even in 2016, when there are more educated consumers. This might be due to the ineffectiveness of current financial education. Besides, financial consumers’ level of education or that of monthly income or wealth affect whether they are educated on financial capability or not in the Surveys both in 2007 and in 2016. This might imply that consumers who have financial knowledge or have been investing in financial assets are more likely to get financial education than others. All these outcomes show that current financial education should be changed for effectiveness.

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