This publication reveals the outcomes of Bridgable's work with a federal credit union, cutting through their overwhelming number of offerings to better engage with their low-income members. It also discusses why agility is a better bet than digitization when it comes to our changing financial...

In this webinar, "Insights to impact: What behavioural science tells us about building financial well-being," you'll learn about how behavioural science can be used to help build financial well-being and influence the design of financial empowerment programs.  The speakers are Katy Davis,...

A growing number of Canadians are living with fluctuating incomes - incomes which may vary significantly from month to month, not just from year to year. This makes it difficult to save, plan, and achieve financial wellness. This webinar, "Income volatility in Canada: Why it matters and what to do...

Income volatility describes income which is inconsistent (not received on a regular and predictable basis), unstable (amount varies each time it is received), and that fluctuates month to month by a significant percentage. TD’s report, Pervasive and Profound, has found that Canadians...

This is a presentation from Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman, on financial behaviour and financial literacy. It discusses the RESP / Canada Learning Bond enrolment as an applicaiton for behavioural economics research to improve...

About half of households are considered financially fragile, which means they’re not sure they could come up with $2,000 in 30 days if they had to. Lack of emergency savings is common. It affects about half of households that earn $25,000 to $75,000 a year, and about a quarter of households that...

This paper presents new survey data on subjective mortality beliefs for nearly 5,000 respondents, administered by a professional survey panel provider, and it shows that these survey-elicited beliefs contribute to seemingly contradictory savings rate puzzles at opposite ends of the...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the CFPB) looked at the information sources consumers are exposed to when they make financial decisions. Empowering consumers to make the financial decisions that will help them meet their own life goals is a critical part of the mission of the CFPB. To...

Many consumers live paycheck-to-paycheck. Bills and financial notices arrive by mail and e-mail at different times of the day and month. Consumers typically don’t act on them immediately. Research shows that consumers have many reasons for their actions. To gain insight into why it’s so hard...

This reports on research results from an experiment in Malawi that varied the timing of workers' income receipt in two ways. First, payments were made either in weekly installments or as a monthly lump sum, in order to vary the extent to which workers had to save up to make pro table investments....

For financial educators and others who help people with decision-making, there is evidence that providing financial rules of thumb to consumers can work better than more detailed and complex financial education in some situations. To further explore the potential of rules of thumb for financial...

Spending responses to income are typically explained by households’ capital structures. Households that hold little or no liquid wealth have to consume hand-to-mouth. However, we find that few individuals hold little or no liquidity, and we document that liquidity holdings are much larger than...

People living on low incomes have historically been excluded from politics and policy debates, even when the question at hand is how poverty can be reduced or its impacts mitigated. The aim of this research was to explore how people on low incomes perceive politics, understand how far they feel...

The goal of this report is to share new insights from behavioural science with financial empowerment practitioners so they can integrate behavioural approaches into their work and strengthen the design and delivery of financial empowerment supports for Canadians with low incomes. In this report,...

This brief Guide, Values-Centered Financial Education: Understanding Cultural Influences on Learners’ Financial behaviours, contains tools for you to use to help learners identify the underlying values that motivate them to make sound financial life decisions. You will soon see that by...

Financial literacy has been proposed widely as an effective approach to preparing people to manage their finances. This paper proposes an alternative concept, financial capability. Financial capability includes both the ability to act (knowledge, skills, confidence, and motivation) and the...

The Rodriguez’ enjoy a measure of financial health and security. Maria and her husband, Dean, will soon have the first mortgage paid off on their four-bedroom, two-bathroom house. Buttressed by regular payments from Social Security and other federal benefits, the five members of the household...

Our eighth biennial study on the Financial Experience & behaviours Among Women uncovers optimism about recovering markets and encouraging short-term improvements, but troubling long-term trends. While the survey paints a troubling picture of their long-term financial preparedness, the results...

With the growing complexity of financial products and services, there is an increased interest in understanding the psychological components that affect financial decisions. Perceived financial capability is but one component of the broader concept of financial capability that also includes...

This report presents findings from a behavioural intervention designed to increase the number of incarcerated noncustodial parents in Texas who apply for modifications to reduce the amount of their child support orders. Incarcerated noncustodial parents have a limited ability to pay their...

Policy makers have embraced financial education as a necessary antidote to the increasing complexity of consumers’ financial decisions over the last generation. This research conducts a meta-analysis of the relationship of financial literacy and of financial education to financial behaviours in...

With so many households struggling to stay afloat following the recession, financial health advocates stopped to consider a critical point: How do we help consumers adopt financial behaviours that lead to improvements in their financial lives? To tackle this question, the Citi Foundation partnered...

Behavioural economics is the study of how people make decisions in a complex and textured world where details matter. It draws from the fields of economics and psychology, but brings a unique perspective that departs from each of these fields in important ways. behavioural economics differs from...