Willis: The Financial Education Fallacy. 2011

Lauren E. Willis, Juraprofessorin an der Loyola Law School Los Angeles, stellt, wie gewohnt, kritische Fragen zur "finanziellen Bildung":
"But it is time to ask whether the entire enterprise is misguided. Do we want to live in a society where ordinary consumers are left to navigate one by one through an ever-changing cornucopia of financial products armed only with education? What would “education” to counteract the nonrational determinants of financial behavior look like? If we could create a society in which financial education functions effectively as financial regulation, would we be better off?" (Willis 2011, S. 1).
Willis bezweifelt, dass es politisch gelingen kann, die für eine wirksame "finanzielle Bildung" nötigen Mittel bereitzustellen: 
"Once the true costs are considered, however, effective financial education looks much less politically palatable. A society that is unwilling to pay for a K-12 education system that produces a populace that can perform basic math is not going to pay for one that can do this and far more. Mandated adult financial education has been unpopular; opposition quickly shut down an Illinois program to require high-foreclosure-risk mortgage applicants to engage in counseling prior to borrowing. The type of psychological counseling that would be required to debias consumers to enable them to use financial knowledge and skills effectively is almost certainly a political nonstarter." (Willis 2011, S. 10)
Wichtig ist ihr Hinweis auf die politischen Interessen der Finanzindustrie, aus denen heraus sie Programme finanzieller Bildung sponsort: um strengerer politischer Regulierung der Finanzmärkte vorzubeugen:
"One clue that financial education is not the only politically feasible path is the amount of money that industry spends on advocating for and funding financial education programs, even though consumers who exercise welfare-enhancing personal financial behaviors typically are less profitable for industry. Firms sometimes support these programs so as to use them as marketing opportunities. But firms also support programs when they have no control over the content. Why? Firms fear the other forms of regulation they believe they would face if they could not point to financial education as the cure for consumer financial woes. But if the inefficacy of current programs were known and the costs of effective financial education were truly understood, other forms of regulation would move to the fore." (Willis 2011, S. 10).