On the Gender Gap in Financial Knowledge: Decomposing the Effects of Don't Know and Incorrect Responses*

Objectives Past studies have consistently shown that women have lower levels of financial knowledge than men, and hence there is a noticeable gender gap in financial knowledge. We reconsider the conventional measures of financial knowledge by disentangling don't know (DK) responses and incorrect answers and comparing the effect of these two disparate responses’ on the gender gap in financial knowledge. Methods Using data from the 2012 National...