The development of the Muldimensional Financial Literacy Scale

In literature, both the conceptual definitions and the methods used to measure financial literacy (FL) vary quite substantially. Based on OCSE definition, we refer to financial literacy not only in terms of financial knowledge, but also as skills, attitudes and behaviors that influence the financial decision-making process and, ultimately, people’s financial well-being. Hence, we developed a new tool to measure financial literacy as a multidimensional construct, specifically, our scale has four different factors: financial knowledge, assessed with an increase complexity level of items based on literature, financial self-efficacy (as the subjective perception of knowledge and competence) and financial interest (as the positive attitude towards financial topic). Finally, we also focused on the everyday financial behaviors, such as expense planning and saving. Preliminary outcomes show that the hierarchical order of the financial literacy items proved to be correct: the percentage of correct answers decreases as the items progress. Moreover, analyses reveal reliability and internal consistency for two of the three financial behavior subscales (expense planning and saving). These findings on our new scale are encouraging and highlight that financial literacy is a multidimensional construct.