Do More Financially Literate Households Invest Less in Housing? Evidence from Italy

Using the Bank of Italy's Survey of Households Income and Wealth (SHIW) covering a 5-years panel, we measure the impact of the degree of households' financial literacy on the quota of housing investment in their portfolio. We find that households with higher levels of financial literacy hold a relatively lower share of illiquid wealth, and the results are more pronounced at older ages, when according to the lifecycle hypothesis they are meant to decumulate their wealth