Financial Literacy and Income Inequality in the European Emerging Countries

Simona-Gabriela Masca – Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 58-60 Teodor Mihali Street, 400591 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Abstract: This study highlights the distributional impact of financial litera­cy by using annual cross-country panel data from a sample of Central, East­ern, and Southeastern European countries observed during the period 2012- 2017. Particular attention is dedicated to financial competencies regarding various aspects of interest rates, inflation, and risk diversification issues. Our empirical approach, based on the estimated generalized least square meth­od, allows us to identify those groups of individuals who benefit in terms of relative incomes based on different financial skills. The findings reveal a strong positive correlation between risk diversification knowledge and over­all and top-bottom income inequality. Important policy implications are drawn in the case of the emerging European countries.

8th International Scientific Conference – EMAN 2024 – Economics and Management: How to Cope With Disrupted Times, Rome, Italy, March 21, 2024, CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, published by: Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans, Belgrade, Serbia; ISBN 978-86-80194-83-7, ISSN 2683-4510, DOI: https://doi.org/10.31410/EMAN.2024

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission. 

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