- Foiled by the Banks? How a Lender’s Decision May Support or Undermine a Jurisdiction’s Environmental Policies that Promote Green Buildings, Darren A. Prum, Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law, 2015, Forthcoming.
- The Numerus Clausus Principle, Property Customs, and the Emergence of New Property Forms, Yun-chien Chang & Henry E. Smith, Iowa Law Review, Vol. 100, 2015.
- Building Self-Sufficiency for Housing Voucher Recipients: Interim Findings from the Work Rewards Demonstration in New York City, Stephen Nunez, Nandita Verma & Edith Yang, New York: MDRC, June 2015.
- Size Signals Success: Evidence from Real Estate Private Equity, Sebastian Krautz & Franz Fuerst, Journal of Portfolio Management, Vol. 41, No. 5, 2015.
- Debt, Poverty, and Personal ‘Financial Distress’, Stephen J. Ware, 89 American Bankruptcy Law Journal 493 (2015).
- Household Debt and Crises of Confidence, Thomas Hintermaier & Winfried Koeniger, CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP10865.
- Trend-Spotting in the Housing Market, Nikos Askitas, IZA Discussion Paper No. 9427.
- Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors in the Single-Family Housing Market: The Emergence of a New Asset Class?, James Mills, Raven Molloy & Rebecca Zarutskie, FEDS Working Paper No. FEDGFE2015-84.
- How House Price Dynamics and Credit Constraints Affect the Equity Extraction of Senior Homeowners, Stephanie Moulton, Samuel Dodini, Donald R. Haurin & Maximilian D. Schmeiser, FEDS Working Paper No. FEDGFE2015-70.
- Real Estate Fund Openings and Cannibalization, David H. Downs, Steffen P. Sebastian & Rene-Ojas Woltering.
Tag Archives: success
The Secret to Financial Well-Being?
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a report, Financial Well-Being: The Goal of Financial Education. I have been somewhat critical of the CFPB’s approach to financial literacy education, but I think that this report sets forth a pretty reasonable baseline for future research. It states,
A growing consensus is emerging that the ultimate measure of success for financial literacy efforts should be improvement in individual financial well-being. But financial well-being has never been explicitly defined, nor is there a standard way to measure it. Overall, the literature paints a picture of nuanced, complex interactions between financial knowledge, understanding, and actions taken. However, rigorously identified links between these factors and financial outcomes have yet to be established.
Our project provides a conceptual framework for defining and measuring success in financial education by delivering a proposed definition of financial well-being, and insight into the factors that contribute to it. This framework is grounded in the existing literature, expert opinion, and the experiences and voice of the consumer garnered through in-depth, one-on-one interviews with working-age and older consumers. (4-5)
The CFPB proposes a definition of financial well-being “as a state of being” where people
- Have control over day-to-day, month-to-month finances;
- Have the capacity to absorb a financial shock;
- Are on track to meet your financial goals; and
- Have the financial freedom to make the choices that allow you to enjoy life.
Because individuals value different things, traditional measures such as income or net worth, while important, do not necessarily or fully capture this last aspect of financial well-being. (5)
This all seems reasonable to me in the abstract, although I am not sure how you would measure success across a large group of people given the very different ways that people would respond to the prongs of that definition. I would also note that events beyond the control of a financially literate person (illness, structural unemployment etc.) could devastate that person’s financial well-being, much as upright Job was devastated by the tests he had to endure. Notwithstanding these concerns, I am looking forward to see how the CFPB uses its definition to develop its research agenda and to design its policies.
