Dataset for Financial Literacy and Mutual Fund Investment Behaviors: Evidence from South Korea during the Financial Crisis

The importance of financial knowledge on efficient investment behaviors is well known. However, few studies have examined the relationship between financial literacy and investment behaviors under different economies' conditions. Using the 2007-2016 Fund Investors Survey from South Korea, we investigate the heterogeneous effects of financial literacy on individual investment decisions during and after the 2008 financial crisis. While differentiating objective and subjective financial knowledge, we find that only subjective knowledge is positively related to participation in financial markets and negatively related to fund exit decisions during the financial crisis (2007-2008). However, in the post-crisis period (2009-2016), both subjective and objective financial knowledge affect fund investment behaviors. We further examine these results through a knowledge calibration mechanism. We present suggestive evidence that the effect of subjective knowledge during the financial crisis is not driven by the overconfident investors whose subjective knowledge level deviates from objective knowledge but by the group whose subjective and objective knowledge are highly calibrated.

金融知识之于高效投资行为的重要性已然得到广泛认可。然而，鲜有研究探讨不同经济情境下金融素养（Financial Literacy）与投资行为之间的关联。本研究依托韩国2007-2016年基金投资者调查（Fund Investors Survey）数据集，探究2008年金融危机期间及危机后，金融素养对个体投资决策的异质性影响。在区分客观金融知识与主观金融知识的基础上，本研究发现：在2007-2008年金融危机期间，仅主观金融知识与金融市场参与行为呈显著正相关，与基金赎回决策呈显著负相关。而在后危机时期（2009-2016年），主观与客观金融知识均会对基金投资行为产生显著影响。本研究进一步借助知识校准（Knowledge Calibration）机制对上述研究结论展开验证。本研究提供了启示性证据：金融危机期间主观金融知识所产生的影响，并非源于主观知识水平与客观知识水平存在偏差的过度自信投资者，而是来自主观与客观金融知识匹配度较高的投资者群体。