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The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the determinants of owner manager financial self-confidence. In particular, it estimates the effect of bank credit rejection and financial education (FE) on the financial self-confidence of business owners.

This paper uses data from 2004 and 2008 surveys of 2,500 UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). An ordered probit estimation is used to measure and assess the effect of bank credit rejection and FE variables on financial self-confidence for the two periods. The authors also explore potential differences in self-confidence between males and females.

The results show that outright bank credit rejection reduces financial self-confidence among owner managers whereas partial bank credit rejection is found to help boost confidence prior to the financial crisis. There is strong evidence that FE increases financial self-confidence. Finally, the authors find no association between gender and reported self-confidence in finance.

Entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs are encouraged to explore financial literacy and knowledge with a view to increasing their financial self-confidence. This will help SMEs to deal with the banks or other finance providers more efficiently. In addition, better application procedures and information on lending criteria may help SMEs to minimize the probability of bank credit rejection. So the current study has implications for professional bodies as well. The study, however, is restricted to sole proprietor and partnership SMEs and in the UK context only.

Financial self-confidence has a progressive effect on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial venture growth. The financial self-confidence of owner managers can support their entrepreneurial capability in starting and operating one or more businesses. As entrepreneurs successfully start and operate their own businesses, they are contributing to economic development through job creation, employment and tax contribution.

This paper makes an original contribution in highlighting the usefulness of FE in boosting financial self-confidence among entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs. It is also found that the experience of bank credit rejection reduces entrepreneurs’ financial self-confidence.

People are increasingly responsible for making sound financial decisions to foster their financial satisfaction and well-being, which magnifies the importance of financial literacy, and this concept and measurement is still not yet crystallized in the literature, specifically capturing different behavior perceptions. Moreover, there is not a distinction based on different classifications of behavior, such as over or underconfidence, to understand the relation between literacy and decision process. To fill this gap, this paper aims to investigate whether the financial literacy conceptual model proposed applies similarly to every group independently of their previous self-confidence perception. For this purpose and quality control, OECD (2016) data were used with a final sample of 1,487 Brazilian citizens. Quantitative analysis technique using partial least squares structural equations path modeling and differences between groups using multi-group analysis was applied. In line with general studies, when analyzing the financial literacy usual model for the group as a whole, financial knowledge construct positively influences self-confidence, and both together positively affect financial behavior. However, for individuals with low financial knowledge and low self-confidence, as well as for those with too much or too little confidence, the model did not hold. Therefore, self-confidence perception influences the way financial knowledge is used for financial decisions and should be addressed in financial education and training to be more effective.

To operationalize the variables and test the paper’s hypotheses, the authors used the methodology developed in OECD (2016), based on the research instrument’s Brazilian application adapted from the questionnaire developed in OECD (2015), with data initially used and made available by Garber and Koyama (2016). Based on the recommendations of Hair Jr et al. (2017a, 2017b), the authors used partial least squares modeling PLS-PM (SmartPLS 3.2.6) to estimate the structural models.

Concerning structural relationships, the final model showed knowledge with a positive influence on self-confidence, self-confidence with a positive effect on behavior and knowledge with a positive influence on behavior, both directly and, through its relationship with self-confidence, indirectly. This underscores that, for the total sample, the greater people’s knowledge and self-confidence, the better their behavior. The unexpected absence of attitude in the final model, even allowing for potential measurement problems, brings up an important reflection on the mediating effect that the self-control variable may exert between attitude and behavior. A person may believe that saving for the future is important (attitude) but whether they actually save (behavior) may depend on self-control, which is needed to prevent immediate gains from being prioritized in practice.

The findings reported so far concern the study’s total sample. However, as expected from the literature review that provides the basis for the sixth and the most important hypothesis, respondents were found to be heterogeneous in terms of knowledge and self-confidence levels. These differences were evaluated by means of multi-group analyses that indicated that the model does not apply to respondents with low knowledge and low self-confidence and to those who are over- and underconfident. This implies inferring that financial education programs may be of little use if they only address technical knowledge development and fail to consider behavioral aspects such as those related to self-confidence, as this paper points out, and others. This signals the importance of diagnosing people’s profiles to enable developing solutions capable of minimizing the presence of behavioral biases. This need to be studied further.

The results imply inferring that financial education programs may be of little use if they only address technical knowledge development and fail to consider behavioral aspects such as those related to self-confidence, as this paper points out, and others. Models must be reviewed in light of natural diferences of cognition and lead to customized financial education.

This signals the importance of diagnosing people’s profiles to enable developing solutions capable of minimizing the presence of behavioral biases. Therefore, not only training topics in personal finance but also a deeper education program since the kindergarden must be considered.

Its practical contribution is to suggest the development of financial education programs that also take account of the potential presence of behavioral biases, which may prevent the misallocation of (scarce) public- and private-sector funds stemming from a limited focus on developing the population’s actual financial knowledge.

This paper aims to examine and compare the associations between financial capability and financial anxiety (FA) before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Specifically, financial capability is measured by three indicators: financial knowledge, financial behavior and financial confidence. This study also examines and compares the association among different income groups before and during the pandemic.

Data are from 2018 to 2021 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS). Structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to examine the direct and indirect associations between financial capability factors and FA. Furthermore, this paper also conducts multi-group SEM for three income groups to examine the heterogeneous effects of household income.

Both before and during the pandemic, financial knowledge is directly positively and financial behavior is directly negatively associated with FA. In addition, both financial knowledge and financial behavior are positively associated with financial confidence, which in turn is negatively associated with FA. However, when taking the indirect effects into consideration, the total effects of financial capability factors on FA are all negative. Furthermore, the pandemic has intensified the negative association between financial behavior and FA rather than financial knowledge or financial confidence. Multi-group SEM shows that the positive direct effects of financial knowledge are only significant in the low-income group, while the negative direct effects of financial behavior are only significant in the low- and middle-income groups before the pandemic. However, direct effects of financial knowledge and financial behavior are significant in all income groups during the pandemic.

First, this study specifies a construct, financial confidence, to proxy perceived financial capability. Second, it examines the mediating role of financial confidence in the association between the other two financial capability factors (financial knowledge and financial behaviors) and FA. Third, it also compares the associations between financial capability factors and FA before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and nearly caused a meltdown of the financial system. This article looks at the situation before Lehman went bankrupt and how this event came to trigger a financial panic during the fall of 2008 and early 2009. Two key ideas inform the analysis. The first is that what triggers financial panics are typically hidden losses. The second is that confidence plays a key role in financial panics and that confidence can be conceptualized as a belief that action can be based on proxy signs, rather than on direct information about the situation itself.

The present study examines the linkage between financial literacy and financial fragility during COVID-19. It further examines if financial literacy has a differential impact on financial fragility based on psychological (financial confidence), economic (wealth) and social (race) factors.

The authors used nationally representative data of the American working age-group. They collated six different datasets collected at different time-periods to conduct the present study. Based on 2,202 observations, they conducted logistic regression analyses to test the proposed relationships.

The authors find that financial literacy reduces the odds of being financially fragile by 9.1%. Furthermore, they find that financially literate consumers having high financial confidence are less financially fragile during COVID-19. Besides, the adverse impact of financial literacy on financial fragility is more for consumers having more than less wealth. The interaction with race is not significant, suggesting that financial literacy cuts across racial boundaries.

Financial fragility is an important factor having numerous deleterious consequences. The authors’ study found that financial confidence, psychological factor and wealth economic factor enhances the negative effect of financial literacy on financial fragility. Banks and financial institutes can develop mechanisms to infuse confidence in individuals during the pandemic to reduce their financial fragility. Policymakers and governments may increase awareness related to debt management practices and design financial literacy interventions to reduce financial fragility among individuals.

The study is one of the initial studies to examine the antecedents of financial fragility. Based on a time-lagged data, the authors’ study examines the linkage between financial literacy and financial fragility. Though scholars have investigated financial literacy and its implications, scholarly work in this domain during COVID-19 is at best limited. The study contributes to the literature by testing the effects of boundary conditions that can change financial literacy's impact on financial fragility.

Already suffering reputational damage from the global financial crisis, banks face a further loss of trust due to their poor money laundering (ML) compliance practices. As confidence-driven institutions, the loss of reputation stemming from inadequate compliance with regulations and policies labels banks as facilitators of crime and destroys public trust both in the bank itself, peer banks and the wider banking system. Considering the links between financial stability and adverse publicity about banks, this paper aims to critically examine the implications of ML-specific bank information on financial stability.

This paper adopts a content analysis and a theoretical discussion by critically evaluating the role of bank compliance information on stability with references to recent case studies.

This paper establishes that availability of information regarding a bank involved in or facilitating ML might pose a threat to financial stability if bank counterparties cut their ties with the bank in question and when bank stakeholders show a strong and sudden negative reaction to adverse publicity. Though recent ML scandals have not caused immediate instability, general loss of confidence associated with reputational risk have had a destabilising effect on affected banks’ capital and liquidity.

There has been surprisingly little discussion to date on the impact of publicly available bank information on financial stability and public confidence within the ML compliance framework. This paper approaches the issue of publicly available banking compliance information solely through the prism of public confidence and reputational risk and its impact on macro-stability by examining recent ML scandals.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of credit record overconfidence on the use of alternative financial services (AFSs).

Using data from the 2018 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS), the authors estimate logistic regressions on the use of at least one AFS by adding a credit record confidence variable that captures deviations between self-assessments of credit record management and the number of reported behaviors that would negatively affect aspects of a Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) score.

The authors find that respondents with credit record overconfidence have over two times higher odds (123.9%) of using AFS than the odds of respondents with financial knowledge overconfidence (46.8%), relative to their reference categories. When compared directly, those with only credit record overconfidence have 32.6% higher odds of using AFS than those with only financial knowledge overconfidence.

The results provide implications for education programs, not only for vulnerable groups at higher risk for AFS use but also for those with cognitive biases, such as credit record overconfidence. Potential solutions include personal financial education that includes debiasing and behavioral techniques for overconfidence.

This paper studies, for the first time, the effect of deviations between actual and perceived credit record management on AFS use.

There is strong excitement during Ponzi schemes and financial bubble periods. This emotion causes investors to turn to “unknown and new investment instruments”. This study, the factors that made “unknown and new investment instruments” preferable to “known and experienced investment instruments” were investigated.

It was taken into account unconscious like phantasy, emotional like emotional intelligence, both affective and cognitive like financial literacy and subjective beliefs like trust and overconfidence. In addition, risk preferences were measured with four different risk variables. In this context, data were collected by online survey method between November 2020 and May 2021 with convenience sampling. First, the data were collected from 832 participants in the pilot study. Additional data were also collected using convenience sampling and online surveys, and a total of 1,692 participants were obtained. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 25 and AMOS 24.

As a result of the analyses made, the variables that lead investors to choose “unknown and new investment instruments” were determined as risky investment intention, phantasy, risk taking/risk avoidance, confidence, risk tolerance and subjective financial literacy. Trust and risk perception have a very weak effect on preferences. However, no effect of emotional intelligence and objective financial literacy was detected. In addition, a moderately positive and significant relationship was found between objective and subjective financial literacy. Subjective financial literacy was found to have a strong and significant relationship with emotional intelligence, confidence, trust, risky investment intention and phantasy.

This study investigates the factors underlying individuals' investment preferences from a broad perspective. We think that this study is unique in this structure and wide variables. We believe that the findings obtained in this manner are unique to both academics and practitioners. We also believe that the findings of the study will make an important contribution to understanding participation behavior in various Ponzi schemes and financial bubbles.

A paradigm shift in consumer confidence has taken place with the worst recession on record forcing people to evaluate their personal and household finances. This paper seeks to explore the extent to which consumer confidence has been tarnished, and how it has evolved post‐recession. It aims to take both retrospective and prospective views on what has changed in the British psyche since the credit crunch, looking at where new confidences have been found and where old confidences have been lost, and hypothesising about the extent to which consumer behaviour will remain constant or further change against a likely backdrop of continuing financial instability.

This paper is based on a variety of proprietary quantitative research surveys conducted by YouGov plc.

This paper provides new insights into consumer confidence, including, but not limited to: demonstrating the harsh realities of more people being in financial difficulty now than 18 months ago, and its impact on confidence; looking at which aspects of household expenditure and budgets have been hardest squeezed, and what that means for short‐ and medium‐term futures; analysing the extent to which the generally lower level of available credit makes consumers more or less reliant on borrowing as a way of life, and the associated impact on confidence and decision making/financial planning prioritisation; exploring the real fears and concerns people have about their future finances; and exploring consumer financial hopes and aspirations in a post‐recessionary climate.

Findings from bespoke research offer hitherto unpublished and statistically valid results on the extent to which consumers have coped with and embraced the aftermath of the recession, and, moreover, how that might manifest itself in terms of future consumer confidence in financial services.

Life insurance is bought with a prior belief that promise stipulated in policy will be honored when due. Discernibly, this belief is backed by the confidence that financial markets and economy will demonstrate satisfactory performance. However, individuals' confidence levels may get shaken through naïve reinforcement learning if they witness negative market or economic condition. Considering this the authors investigate the relationship between investor confidence and life insurance demand.

The authors used bias corrected bootstrapped sample of OECD economies to examine the link between investor confidence and life insurance demand when two possible economic conditions were witnessed: 1) normal/economic expansion and 2) economic/debt impairment. The findings are robust to alternate estimation techniques and endogeneity.

The authors found that lower investor confidence, sovereign debt impairment and negative market condition will have negative repercussion on life insurance demand. On the other hand, investor confidence-life insurance demand nexus is merely influenced by market and economic condition.

This is a premier research explaining the nexus between investor confidence and life insurance demand in the context of life-cycle hypothesis, sovereign ratings channel and experience-confidence-belief framework. The finding will help economic policy-makers in developing pre-emptive measures to protect life insurance businesses from negative repercussions of lower confidence and negative market conditions.