Changing Students’ Financial Knowledge through Different Levels of Economic University Education

Abstract

Most authors agree that financial, i.e. economic education is a key determinant of the level of financial knowledge and, consequently, that knowledge is a key component of prosperous and efficient financial behaviour. Relevant researches, carried out at the national and international level, have indicated a relatively low level of financial knowledge of economics students. Based on these postulates, this paper aims to analyse the level of financial knowledge of the population of the economic university students and intends to evaluate the relationship of financial knowledge with their obtained educational level. The research results serve to confirm the hypothesis: higher level of economic education implies higher financial knowledge of students. The survey was conducted at the Department of Economics and Business Economics of the University of Dubrovnik. It lasted for two months (May - June 2012) and involved 233 economics students. Students were classified in five groups according to their level of education. The main results indicate that the financial knowledge of economics students increases over time as a result of a positive influence of economic university education.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n4p150