Technological innovations have changed the way consumers manage money and conduct their financial lives. Today’s technological landscape offers a range of personal finance apps that allow consumers to pay bills, monitor budgets, manage cash flow, and save. The automation built into personal...

Consumers are emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic into an economically tumultuous period marked by high inflation and other threats to financial security. How has the financial standing of America’s consumers, including those who are economically distressed, changed in response to the economic...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had enormous effects on the U.S. economy and may have had serious negative repercussions for many Americans’ financial stability. We use longitudinal survey data from a nationally representative internet panel, the Understanding America Study, to examine the early...

We administered the FINRA Foundation’s National Financial Capability Study questionnaire to members of the RAND American Life Panel (ALP) in 2012 and 2018. Using this unique, longitudinal data set, we investigate the evolution of financial literacy over time and shed light on the causal effect...

In the past few decades, financial products target to consumers have become increasingly complex and recent evidence suggests that older adults are entering retirement with more debt than previous generations. We examine how cognitive ability is related to debt burdens among older adults and...

There is little evidence on how the large market for credit score improvement products affects consumers or credit market efficiency. A randomized encouragement design on a standard credit builder loan (CBL) identifies null average effects on whether consumers have a credit score and the score...