Similarities and Differences between Households’ and SME’s Financial Knowledge and Behaviour: A Greek Survey

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the financial literacy, thus the financial behaviour of 352 Greek households. In turn, we compare our findings with results from a similar survey we conducted on an equivalent sample of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Our aim was to realise if there is any link between financial knowledge and behaviour in each surveyed micro-system and, further, indicate similarities and differences between them. Ιt is argued that the sample of households make better use of financial knowledge than the surveyed SMEs. Further, even in cases where financial knowledge was of high performance, both groups did not perform accordingly in terms of their financial behaviour. Such results indicate the complexity of the relationship between knowledge and behaviour.

JEL classification: L20, D10, D22

Keywords: Households; small and medium-sized enterprises; financial knowledge; financial behaviour; Greece.