Students' saving behavior: Does the field of study influence students' financial saving behavior?

Abstract

In this thesis, we use an online survey, distributed on social media, to analyze the saving behavior of university students in Sweden. We test the importance of students’ fields of study, which is used as a proxy to future expected income, as well as their consumption of financial literacy and information. We find insignificant results for the savings rate depending on field of study, but also insignificant results for savings rate when it comes to consuming financial information. Moreover, our findings suggest that current income is the most important variable related to students’ savings rate. Additionally, we find significant results for students’ field of study regarding saving in more speculative financial instruments, where students in any field of study among econ, engineering, medicine and law are more likely to speculate than the reference group of teacher students. The strongest effect is observed for engineering and econ students. Finally, we find significant and positive estimates for students who are actively consuming financial news, when it comes to savings in different speculative financial instruments.