Empowering Future Financial Decision-Makers

The Role of University Teaching in Shaping Sustainable Finance Literacy and Investment Behavior

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_10How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Sustainable Finance Literacy; Sustainable Investment Behavior; Business Education; Quantitative Survey Research

Abstract

Our study investigates how sustainable finance literacy shapes investment behavior among first-year Business Administration students and how university education can support the development of a more sustainability-oriented financial mindset. The analysis is based on the first wave of an ongoing full population survey of first-year business students at a German university (N = 252). Using multiple OLS regressions and matched individual comparisons, we examine how business curricula influence attitudes and decisions related to sustainable finance. Our data include sociodemographics, educational background and detailed information on financial and investment behavior. Preliminary findings suggest that practical investment experience enhances sustainable finance knowledge more effectively than university coursework. We also observe notable sociodemographic patterns, such as a gender gap in sustainable finance literacy and higher knowledge levels among younger students. Interestingly, while sustainable finance literacy correlates strongly with general financial knowledge, completed university classes in business studies are associated with a lower share of sustainable investments in students’ portfolios. This suggests that current curricula may not sufficiently foster sustainability-oriented thinking in finance. Two further survey waves targeting additional cohorts (expected total N = 750) will allow for validating and extending these findings. In addition, a follow-up with the original cohort is planned to examine individual development in financial literacy and investment behavior throughout the course of their studies. Our contribution underlines the transformative potential of higher education and calls for a critical reassessment of how finance and economics are taught in order to promote more responsible financial decision-making in the future.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Cedric Bardowieck
AU  - Joachim Prinz
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/23
TI  - Empowering Future Financial Decision-Makers
BT  - Proceedings of the Conference of Growing up the Future: Education for Sustainability (GROUFES 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 107
EP  - 117
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_10
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_10
ID  - Bardowieck2026
ER  -