Life-Cycle Investing: Financial Education and Consumer Protection

Third in the series of Boston University–sponsored conferences titled “The Future of Life-Cycle Saving and Investing,” the May 2011 conference again brought together academic researchers, educators, advisers, and regulators. This time, we analyzed the gaps in consumers’ current financial knowledge, how those gaps might be narrowed through financial education programs, and how consumer protection regarding financial products might be strengthened—with a focus on low- and middle-income households. Although there was general agreement that consumers of financial products and services make many costly mistakes, there was also considerable disagreement about relying primarily on consumer financial education programs to correct those mistakes.