Using a US nationally representative sample of over 6000 adults from 26 countries of ancestry, we find a strong association between their financial literacy in the US and the financial literacy level in their self-reported country of ancestry. More specifically, if an individual from a country of ancestry with ‘average’ financial literacy had instead come from a country with financial literacy one-standard deviation above the mean, his or her likelihood of answering correctly basic financial literacy questions regarding inflation, risk diversification, and interest rate in the US would have increased by 4 percentage points, a 9% increase relative to the average financial literacy in our sample of 43%. The cultural components behind this observed association include a strong emphasis on patience, long-term orientation and risk-aversion in the country of ancestry. We also find that the association is driven by financial literacy on risk diversification and interest compounding.

使用来自26个祖先国家的6000多名成年人的美国全国代表性样本，我们发现他们在美国的金融知识水平与其在自我报告的祖先国家的金融知识水平之间有很强的联系。更具体地讲，如果来自具有“平均”金融知识水平的祖国的个人来自具有高于平均水平一个标准差的金融知识水平的国家，则他或她可能正确回答有关通货膨胀，风险多元化的基本金融知识水平问题，而美国的利率将提高4个百分点，相对于我们样本中的43％的平均金融知识水平提高了9％。这种观察到的联想背后的文化成分包括对耐心的高度重视，祖国的长期定位和风险规避。我们还发现，该协会是由对风险分散和复利的金融知识所驱动。