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In a small a financial education pilot at Oh Day Aki Charter School in Minneapolis involving one teacher and about 100 middle and high school students, results suggest that that standard financial education materials can be adapted to benefit Native students in an urban setting, despite pre-existing educational challenges that are typical of inner-city schools, such as high turnover and low reading skills. The pilot's sponsoring partners hope to build on the lessons learned in order to further promote financial education for Native youth.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Take Charge America Institute at the University of Arizona, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis invited a small group of researchers and practitioners to discuss how to improve the evaluation and metrics of youth financial education programs. The meeting focused specifically on youth — which we defined as individuals under the age of 25 – in an effort to distinguish this effort from others that have discussed financial education research more broadly.

The Community Development Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) commissioned this study to explore the feasibility of passing a financial education mandate in California. Specifically, we sought to understand the key barriers related to passing a mandate in California and to identify strategies to implement financial education in the current environment, despite the absence of a state mandate.

This study examines the relationship between bank account ownership and student knowledge of personal finance. To assess financial knowledge, the study relies on national data collected every two years by the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Finance. Using test scores from the 2008 JumpStart survey, I assess whether scores are significantly higher among students that have bank accounts, relative to those students that have no formal banking relationship, controlling for demographic and socio-economic variables that might influence financial knowledge.

About 10 million American households do not use any aspect of the banking system. A large body of research provides evidence that limited involvement in the mainstream financial sector is most common among low- and moderate-income (LMI) households. Although their income may be relatively low, these individuals hold assets and regularly conduct financial transactions, frequently with nonbank financial companies.

This study used the 1992–2006 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate changes in risk tolerance levels over time in response to stock market returns. Findings indicate that risk tolerance tends to increase when market returns increase and decrease when market returns decrease. Individuals who change their risk tolerance in this manner are likely to invest in stocks when prices are high and sell when prices are low. Researchers, employers, financial educators and practitioners should help investors overcome the bias of overweighting recent news of market performance.

The importance of investment portfolio allocation has become more apparent since the onset of the late 2000s Great Recession. Individual willingness to take financial risks affects portfolio decisions and investment returns among other factors. Previous research found that people of different ages have dissimilar levels of risk tolerance but the effects of generation, period, and aging were confounded. Using the 1998–2007 Survey of Consumer Finances cross-sectional datasets, this study uses an analytical method to separate such effects on financial risk tolerance.

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