Consumption and bank credit at the BRICS countries: a new light on the financial education process

Abstract

Financial education promotes individuals' material well-being in accordance with established school of thought (see Section 1). In order to contribute to a discussion of this conventional wisdom, we investigated BRICS countries, as their bank credit and human wealth enjoyed rapid growth during 2003 to 2014 period and these emerging countries faced several social and economic challenges. Besides the gap in the literature, these are the reasons why BRICS countries were chosen. Our panel data regressions results indicated that non-performing loan and inflation were oriented towards bank credit and consumption. According to the literature: 1) material well-being is derived from consumption (i.e., established school of thought); 2) financial education efforts are in line with this conventional wisdom. Our combined qualitative analysis and quantitative research findings provided a new light on the financial education role. We suggested the material well-being in accordance with established school of thought offers a narrow understanding about how the variables we studied in empirical models should be interpreted (see Section 4). We advocate for an enlightening educative process that cooperates to the improvement of individual's discernment and understanding about this interpretation.